Author: Jane

Secret agents, skulduggery, crime, romance, and sea voyages... Creator of the infamous Ludo da Portovenere, J.G. Harlond (Jane) writes page-turning historical crime novels set during the 17th Century and World War II. Each story weaves fictional characters into real events. Jane also writes Viking-age historical fantasy drawing on folklore, myths and legends for younger – and not so younger – readers. Prior to becoming a full-time fiction author, Jane was involved in international education and wrote a number of textbooks for Oxford University Press. After travelling widely – she has visited or lived in most of the locations in her novels – she is now settled in her husband’s home province of Andalucía, Spain.

Writing The Doomsong Saga

Most readers of any fiction genre are happy to suspend disbelief and accept a story as ‘real’ for the duration of the novel. Readers of historical fiction also trust the author to tell stories about real people and events, and accept the fictional element required to create scenes and relationships between the characters. Reading historical fantasy – such as the excellent novels by Guy Gavriel Kay, or Game of Thrones, which both include elements of real history, involves a slightly different transaction between the author and reader. Here, we have to imagine the setting and epoch in our mind’s eye, and then describe in everyday words. And that is not always easy.

I have come to writing historical fantasy fairly late in my career. I have always enjoyed classic epic fantasy of the Lord of the Rings kind, but I began reading books by Guy Gavriel Kay a few years ago, and that introduced me to another sort of fictional world.

Kay’s stories involve very real people one can relate to in an alternative version of our world. They also contain a lot of history. The Lions of Al-Rassan, for example, is one of the best books on Spanish history I’ve ever read. Kay conveys the power politics, racial and religious struggles so well I lived every page, sensing that this is what it must have been like. This, for me, is where historical fiction and fantasy come together, offering a clearer insight or meaning to the past.

 

Writing my new series, The Doomsong Saga, involves much the same process as my historical crime fiction. I do a lot of background reading, follow up curious events or details and make reams of notes, which are then consciously, or otherwise, modified for my story. Compelling content is vital, but the devil is in the small details required to make strange happenings believable.
The saga begins in an imaginary early-medieval setting then moves on to include elements of real history and events documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Book 1, The Doomsong Sword, began as a re-telling of part of the ancient Norse Volsung saga with a fictional reluctant hero, Davor, who comes to possess the sword named Gram (Anger), Doomsong and Truthteller. Sometime later, I reviewed the Scandinavian history Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price (Basic Books, 2020) and saw the storyline for another book. I then became immersed in what’s now called the Viking Age partly because I spend time in Sweden each year – and partly because I grew up on a Viking battlefield.
Book 2, The Doomsong Voyage, begins with the threat of a recently documented climate catastrophe caused by the eruption of a volcano. I tweaked the dates a little but the ash cloud did make life for Scandinavians even more difficult than it already was, bringing in the fabled Fimbulwinter – a never-ending winter – that forced people to seek new homes on fertile land. As a result of this (in my story), a young tale-maker named Finn sets sail on a Baltic trading knarr to find a pirate named Ice-Heart in the Middle Sea. The pirate is a clan leader, who has the knowledge and personality required to persuade his people to leave all they know and cross the ocean to find a better life. The pirate is not called Ice-Heart without reason, however.  To say more would be a spoiler.
Having lived on the Mediterranean coast of Italy and then Spain for more than half my life, I was familiar with how the Vikings sailed and raided as far as the Levant; how they established camps and then settled in Frankia and Hispania. My fictional Voyage also includes a version of Moorish Al-Andalus, Barbalus. The independent state of Barbalus came from staying in the hill-top town of Vejer de la Frontera.
As I was writing, more and more documented history crept into the story. But there is good deal of magic in it, too. People firmly believed in magic, shape-shifting, enchantments, and the inexplicable power of gods such as Odin/Woden, Thor and Freya in the so-called Dark Ages.

The Doomsong Voyage developed and grew, and once it was finished, I could see how it would make a series. Fortunately, so could my publisher. And, I’m very pleased to say, the book has received some excellent reviews and endorsements by professional historians.

I’ve now completed the third book in the saga, The Doomsong Legend. This has taken me back home to North Devon in the British West Country, where I grew up – on a Viking battlefield. Historians dispute who fought whom and when, but there is little doubt there were at least two major battles on the stretch of land between Northam and Appledore on the River Torridge. Whether Hubba (Ubbe / Hudd) really did lead 23 dragonships into the estuary as stated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle I do not know, but it makes for a good story.

J.G. Harlond
Málaga, January, 2026

Find more about my books on: www.jgharlond.com
The Doomsong Sword: https://mybook.to/DoomsongSaga1
The Doomsong Voyage: https://mybook.to/DoomsongSaga2

 

Medieval Luxury

If you have been watching the ‘King and Conqueror’ tv series about King Harold and William of Normandy, you may assume that life in those days was a matter of mud and guts, of dark interiors, elementary furnishing and minimal, dingy decoration. That was probably the case for the peasantry, not so for the nobility. In the following article, author Malve von Hassell shows life was a lot more colourful and sophisticated than you may think. JGH

The private chamber of Adela of England, Countess de Blois

Adela of England and Normandy (c. 1067—1137), daughter of William the Conqueror, and wife of Henry-Stephen de Blois, most likely enjoyed all the comforts available at the time even if there wasn’t much to be done about the cold damp winters and the drafts in a stone castle.

Baudri, Abbot of Bourgueil, wrote Adela an effusive missive in which he described her chamber as he imagined it.  Even by the standards of the time, his tone was wordy, laced with blatant flattery and an openly stated desire for an elegant cope he hoped Adela would present to him.

Baudri addresses Adele as “hail countess, worthy rather of the name of queen.”

The walls are covered with tapestries, woven according to her design, and all seem alive: on one wall, creation, the fall and fratricide, the flood with fish on mountain tops and lions in the sea; sacred history from Noah through Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, the glory of Moses, and David to Solomon on a second wall; the Greek gods and myths, Phaethon, Ganymede, Cadmus, Pyramis and Thisbe, Hermaphroditus, Orpheus, Troy, and Roman kings on a third; around her bed the conquest of England, William’s claims to the throne as Edward’s chosen successor, the comet, the Norman council and preparations, the fleet, the battle of Hastings with the feigned flight of the Normans and the real one of the English, and the death of Harold.

He goes on at great length, also mentioning the ceiling and the bed hangings as referencing not only all of nature, but all the sciences, liberal arts, and philosophy, as well as rhetoric and medicine, a none too subtle way to flatter Adela for her piety, her political position, the breadth of her education, and her wide-ranging interests.

Over the top, to be sure, but from Baudri’s writing we can deduce with some certainty that Adela had a private space known as a “solar.”

Such a solar was a chamber on an upper floor of the castle, equipped with large windows to let in the sunlight. A lord or lady could enjoy a modicum of privacy for sleeping, reading, needlework, and receiving friends or vassals. A solar was by no means standard. In medieval times, there was little privacy; people slept in shared spaces, often even in shared beds, if beds were available. The great hall of a castle served as a place for eating, entertaining, working with retainers, cooking, and sleeping.

So, what would Adela’s solar have contained? The pride of place was the bed. A wooden bed box or a four-poster bed with a wooden frame supported a straw mattress on ropes strung from one end to the other. This was topped by multiple layers of wool, a feather or down mattress, and linen sheets and blankets. A large, long bolster was stretched across the bed, accompanied by several smaller feather pillows for comfort. Heavy curtains of velvet or silk, richly embroidered, kept out the drafts and protected the sleeper from curious looks.

Tapestries on the walls made the room cozy, and rugs and cushions added to the comfort of the room. In addition to large chests for her clothing and other items, Adela would have had a few chairs and benches for herself and for visitors, and space on a table for manuscripts. As a wealthy and devout Christian, Adela presumably owned a psalter and would have kept it close to hand. A table served for displaying her cosmetics, jewelry, and needlework, all symbols of her wealth and status. The fireplace warmed the room, and candles inside wall indentations and candelabra provided light.

For her daily ablutions, Adela had a ewer and a basin. Women used linen cloths and powders made of herbs to clean their teeth. For a full bath, a wooden tub was brought into the chamber and filled with hot water. As a wealthy woman, Adela would have had expensive soaps available. And herbs, flowers, and scented oils helped to dispel any unpleasant smells in the space.

Lesser nobility generally had to make do with the multifunctional great hall. With any luck, the sleeping areas were set apart by curtains to create some privacy.

And moving down the ladder of the strict medieval social order, peasants slept on the floor in a single room, the bedding consisting of a sack or canvas bag filled with straw or hay.

Of course, rank didn’t necessarily result in sumptuous private quarters. Adela’s brother, the Duke of Normandy, also known as Robert Curthose, at one point in his checkered career was forced to spend days under the covers because he had run out of funds and didn’t have adequate clothing to venture outside. The bedding may well have offered the only source of warmth in the chilly medieval quarters where he was staying.

It’s hardly that different from our time—money and status still determine what sort of personal comfort you are able to draw on.

I once lived in a railroad apartment in New York City with a bathtub on cast-iron feet in the kitchen. The cover over the bathtub served as a buffet table when I had guests, and when friends took a bath, I turned on the radio for their enjoyment. Perhaps for Adela bathing in a wooden tub that would be brought to her room by attendants had a similar charm. Nonetheless, my heart goes out to the attendants who got to sleep on the floor, rolled in a blanket, and inching closer to the warmth of the fireplace, while the lady slept in her curtained sanctuary.

Malve von Hassell (October, 2025)

Source: A letter from Baudri, abbot of Bourgueil and archbishop of Dol (c.1107) to Adela of England, Countess of Blois. https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/letter/94.html

Bio: Malve von Hassell is a freelance writer, researcher, and translator. Her publications include three historical fiction novels for young adult readers, The Falconer’s Apprentice (namelos, 2015), Alina: A Song for the Telling (BHC Press, 2020), and The Amber Crane (Odyssey Press, 2021) as well as the biography of a woman coming age in Nazi Germany, Tapestry of My Mother’s Life: Stories, Fragments, and Silences (Next Chapter Publishing, 2021). Her most recent book is The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois (Historium Press, 2025).

Webpage: https://www.malvevonhassell.com

Blog: https://www.malvevonhassell.com/blog/

Universal sales link: https://books2read.com/u/bpo2vg

Publisher: https://www.historiumpress.com/

© Image : Medieval solar, Blois, Loire Valley – ID: 2123959943 – Shutterstock

 

The Price of Loyalty – review

The Price of Loyalty is very well-researched work of historical fiction. The author, Malve von Hassell, is fully in control of her medieval epoch; what people wore and ate (numerous contemporary recipes), and their general life-style are so well-depicted the story becomes immersive. I journeyed with her characters to and from the Levant, and suffered along with them.

The story centres on the lesser-known historical figure of Adela of Blois, daughter of the infamous William ‘the Conqueror’, and her fictional servant, Cerdic of Wessex. Despite humble English origins (father is killed in the Battle of Hastings and mother lacks the wherewithal to raise him) Cerdic is taken into King William’s household in Normandy as a page and grows up alongside Adela and her brothers. This closeness and familiarity make Cerdic the first person to whom Adela turns for help and support throughout her life. It is a complex relationship, which Cerdic’s wife resents and distrusts.

Cerdic’s unswerving loyalty begins with Adela’s mother, whose actions lead him to serve Count Stephen-Henry of Blois, Adela’s husband. This in turn leads him to marry the only child of a Loire landowner, complicating yet further his relationship and attitude to Adela. As the story progresses, Cerdic has to negotiate personal feelings with his sense of obligation, constantly setting aside his longing to return to his place of birth.

Malve von Hassell has an insightful way of telling the reader about the marital sacrifices, life-choices and responsibilities of both Adela and Cerdic’s wife, Giselle. We see how they are left to manage their husband’s and father’s land respectively, which completely up-ends the usual stereotypes of women as the weaker sex and/or background characters in history. Adela has power, and she uses it. Giselle successfully runs a vineyard, feeds and houses her servants, gives birth and raises children almost entirely on her own from a very young age.

While Cerdic is very aware of Adela’s strengths and achievements, he is largely blind to his wife’s situation, to such an extent that when she follows him all the way to the Holy Land as part of a Crusader retinue, he simply does not see her. Von Hassell’s description of the crusaders’ journey and challenges is also very revealing, and far from the usual presentation of a religious golden opportunity.

Given that the story covers the life of Adela of Blois, who actively influenced numerous people and events in her Anglo-Norman epoch, there was a great deal to include. At times, this felt like a little too much and I did find some sections rather slow going. As a British English reader, I was jolted by the use of various modern idioms and anachronistic phrasing (‘par for the course’: golf), but throughout, I was invested in the main characters and fascinated by how sophisticated they were, despite the lack of medical knowledge and basic amenities. Later chapters include translated documents showing how Adela organised and controlled ecclesiastical matters. The prologue and end-notes include the author’s background reading and original texts.

In all, this it is a very interesting read. Especially recommended for anyone wanting to know more about medieval France, the family of William the Conqueror and Pope Urban’s crusades.

JGH – Málaga, September, 2025

A New Year & New Books

Winter in southern Andalucía can get chilly, but this year, finally, we are having a normal winter with rain, which after so many years of drought is something to celebrate.  After the long Spanish Christmas, I’m back at my desk, working on the third book in my new historical fantasy series for Penmore Press, Doomsong. 

‘Doomsong’ sounds a bit melodramatic, but it was the name of a sword in the ancient Norse Volsung Saga. Sigmund the Volsung pulled a sword named Gram (Anger), Doomsong and Truth-teller from the Barnstock Oak; the only person to do so.
Nowadays, this is classified as fantasy, but it comes from tales told around communal fires in the days of long-ago. Somewhere, there is truth in it. Just as somewhere there is truth in the tales of King Arthur and Excalibur. Perhaps they were meant as a warning against life’s perils, or human frailty. The stories in my new series, however, are grounded on early-medieval events.

NEW RELEASE: The Doomsong Voyage by J.G. Harlond – PENMORE PRESS

I have come to writing historical fantasy rather late in my writing career, but I’ve been reading it for a good while. I’m talking here about books by Guy Gavriel Kay, and G.R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, which rests on a surprising amount of real history.

Kay’s stories are about real people in an imaginary version of Western Europe and include elements of real history. The Lions of Al-Rassan is in the fantasy genre, but it’s one of the best books on Spanish history I have ever read. Kay captures the power politics, racial and religious struggles of Moorish Spain so well through his characters that I lived every word – sensing that this is what it must have been like for real people. This, for me, is where historical fiction and fantasy come together, offering insight into the past. It’s also a liberating and fun way to write a story.

I wrote the first book (of what is to become a series) The Doomsong Sword, after preparing material for a  Norse myths and legends project for a big publisher. They subsequently cancelled the project and I moved on to write more school textbooks. Sometime later, however, I returned to the Volsung Saga and began writing my version of the Sigurd, the Dragonslayer story.

The idea for  The Doomsong Voyage, came after reviewing a non-fiction Viking history, Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price (Basic Books, 2020). Price has a flesh and blood approach to  history, showing how people lived, what they believed, how and where they traded.
I spend time in Sweden visiting family every year so it isn’t hard for me to imagine those dark days, and they were dark because the eruption of a volcano covered the land with ash and blocked out the sun, making life even more difficult than it already was and bringing in Fimbulwinter – a never-ending winter. This is partly what forced early-medieval Scandinavians to find a new home on fertile land elsewhere.
Starting from this, I began the story of a young man named Finn, who sets sail on a Baltic trading knarr to find a pirate named Ice-heart in the Middle Sea. The pirate is a clan leader, who has the knowledge and force of personality required to persuade his people to leave all they know and cross the ocean to find a better life. He is not called Ice-heart without reason, though – to say more would be a spoiler. Finn is accompanied  by a very strange girl with amber eyes, who is always nearby in moments of danger.

Having lived on the Mediterranean coast in Italy and Spain for more than half my life, I was familiar with how the Vikings raided and traded as far as the Levant. This fictional voyage also includes a version of Al-Andalus. My Independent state of Barbalus was the result of a weekend in the hill-top town of Vejer de la Frontera and staying in an old house with a patio like this.

The Doomsong Voyage is under-pinned with documented history and includes an important current issue, the effects of a climate catastrophe. There is good deal of magic in the story, of course, but in those supposedly Dark Ages people believed in magic, shape-shifting, enchantments and curses, and the inexplicable power of the Aesir gods.

The next story is taking me back home to North Devon in the British West Country. I grew up on a Viking battlefield and I used to pass a monument at Bloody Corner in Northam almost ever day. The monument says:

“Stop Stranger Stop,
Near this spot lies buried
King Hubba the Dane,
who was slayed in a bloody retreat,
by King Alfred the Great”

Historians dispute precisely who fought whom and when, and I cannot believe King Alfred himself was involved, but there were at least two battles fought on the narrow stretch of land between Northam and Appledore between the 9th and 11th centuries. Whether Hubba (Ubbe) really did lead 33 dragonships into the estuary, as stated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, I do not know, but it makes for a good story . . . Work-in-progress.

You can find the Doomsong stories (ebook or paperback) in most online stores via these universal links:

The Doomsong Sword 
The Doomsong Voyage

Some other very good reading: Jean Gill’s Midwinter Dragon series .

‘an epic medieval saga of the last Vikings, set in windswept Orkney’

If you also enjoy literary historical fiction take a look at Kristin Gleeson’s books about early medieval Ireland: In Praise of the Bees

 

Finding Roma Nova with Alison Morton

The setting for Roma Nova

by Alison Morton

Imagining Roma Nova – Or is it real?

Ever since I read Violet Needham’s Stormy Petrel series as a child I’ve been caught by the idea of imaginary countries in Central Europe.  Needham’s books for children invoke a romantic ‘otherwhere’, making it familiar, with a subtle, understated magical tone. Possibly seeming old-fashioned now, she’s very much the unsung, and sadly unknown, mother of modern fantasy with a mix of heroism, sacrifice and honour. At first her books were deemed by (grown-up) publishers to be too complex for children, but the story goes that one of the children of a family director at William Collins publishers loved the story, so it was accepted for publication. Talk about serendipity!

A little older, I was entranced by The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau – classic examples of ‘Central Europe’. I thirsted after everything I could find about this amorphous region with no defined boundaries but a definite idea of itself. The Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed to be a concrete representation, but it wasn’t quite. When I learnt German, I found many ideas and writings about Mitteleuropa as a concept. As an adult, I found The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth to be a sweeping history of heroism and duty, desire and compromise, tragedy and heartbreak, a story over generations that lasts until the eve of the First World War. But that empire was vast, diverse and autocratic. Like the Ancient Roman Empire, it collapsed under its own weight and the pressure of people’s desire for their own homeland and self-governance, whether by conquest or democracy.

With all that in mind, my even greater obsession with all 1,229 years of Ancient Rome and a reasonably good knowledge of the alpine regions, I dreamt about an ideal place for the setting for my Romans seeking a new home.  But it would be a small colonia, not an empire! It had to be fertile enough to sustain people, defendable and off the beaten track. So I started researching…

Imagine my delight when I found in real history that at the dusk of the Western Roman Empire people had actually established safe places in the mountains called Fliehburgen. A number of these successfully protected their population during the barbarian invasions, sometimes developing into permanent settlements for decades in the most dangerous periods. And for the Roma Novans, this became necessary in the years after the story in EXSILIUM.

Over their history, the Roma Novans, cultivated their land, built their cities, suffered invasion, rebuilt their cities, extended their holdings, negotiated treaties and managed to survive into the 21st century when the first modern Roma Nova adventure takes place in INCEPTIO.

What does Roma Nova look like in the 21st century?
It’s an alpine country with lower lying valleys a few small towns (Castra Lucilla to the south of the main city, Brancadorum at the east, Aquae Caesaris to the west) and a river city full of columns, a forum, Senate house and temples. High mountains and hills to three sides, although very useful for defence in past ages, keep the 21st century pilots from Air Roma Nova (and most international airlines) on their toes when landing their passenger aircraft after a long haul flight!

Sadly, you can’t use Google Maps to view Roma Nova’s geography from space nor load a Wikipedia page for its history. But inventing a country doesn’t mean you can throw any old facts into your book. They have to hang together. Geography is very important as you need to know what crops they can grow – spelt, oats, olives in sheltered areas, vines, vegetables and fruit – and what animals they raise – cows, sheep, horses, pigs, poultry, etc.

To look back to when those first Roman dissidents left Italy in AD 395 and trekked north to found Roma Nova, I also needed to deepen my specific knowledge about Roman life and culture at that time: their mindset, their customs, their concerns, their ways of doing things. As a reference, the first chapters of Christopher Wickham’s book The Inheritance of Rome draws a clear and detailed picture.

With the Roma Nova books, I’ve used terms that people might already know like the Roman sword, gladius, greeting such as salve, solidi as money, ranks like legate and centurion. But I’ve made the gladius carbon steel, the solidi have currency notes, debit cards and apps as well as coins, and I’ve mixed in other European military ranks such as captain in with traditional Roman ranks. It gives a sense of history that’s gone forward and adapted to the modern age.

Ancient Romans were fabulous engineers and technologists, organised and determined to apply practical solutions to the needs of their complex and demanding civilisation, so I’ve positioned them in the 21st century at the forefront of the communications and digital revolutions.

The silver mines in Roma Nova’s mountains and the resulting processing industry that underpinned Roma Nova’s early economy, and still play an extremely important role in 21st century Roma Nova, are another allusion to ancient Rome. Silver was a big reason the Romans wanted Britannia.  Dacia (Romania) and Noricum (Austria) in central Europe were also of special significance to ancient Rome, as they were very rich in high quality deposits of silver, as well as iron ore, some gold and rare earths. Giving Roma Nova extensive silver deposits provides a strong, plausible reason for its economic survival through the ages.

I also wanted my imaginary country to be near Italy and Austria for international connections.  So it had to be in south central Europe. In the end, I pinched Carinthia in southern Austria, and northern Slovenia as my models. And in summer 2023, I went to the old Noricum capital of Virunum, near Klagenfurt in Austria and was thrilled to visit breathe in the air of ‘Roma Nova’.

Alison Morton © March, 2024

Alison’s social media links: 

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton     @alison_morton

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Review of ‘Exsilium’ by Alison Morton

Exile – the only way to surive

There is an excellent new addition to Alison Morton’s fascinating series Roma Nova, which tells the story of three very different people forced into exile by events in 4th Century Rome.

As I was reading, I became aware through small details that Alison Morton probably knows everything there is to know about 4th Century A.D. Rome and Romans. This knowledge deepens the story a great deal because what happens to the three main protagonists is a result of contemporary circumstances. Circumstances that resonate in our 21st Century. It is surprising, and not a little disquieting, how much our lives have not changed. Religious intolerance, gender issues, family ties and tensions, they are all here, plus the sad need to find a new place to live, and the difficulties and dangers involved in getting there.

I became invested in the main characters and found myself thinking about them between readings: Lucius Apulius, an ex-tribune, Galla Apulia, his eldest daughter, and Maelia Mitela, widow of a man labelled as a pagan traitor for holding on to belief in the ancient gods; each struggle with personal traumas along with the difficulties of a society at a critical point of change. Morton develops her characters in such a way that one can see why they make certain choices, and how they change during the course of the story.

Details of everyday life such as food and clothing, household management and social expectations enrich the story. Action scenes, where the outcome is never obvious, also kept me turning pages. Quality reading for Roman history buffs and hist-fic fans alike. © J.G. Harlond

Buying links: Amazon: https://mybook.to/EXSILIUM

Other retailers: https://books2read.com/EXSILIUM

About the author:

Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her ten-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but use a sharp line in dialogue. The latest, EXSILIUM, plunges us back to the late 4th century, to the very foundation of Roma Nova.

She blends her fascination for Ancient Rome with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, historical and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history. Alison now lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit.

Social media links

Connect with Alison on her thriller site: https://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton     @alison_morton

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PENDRAGON’S BANNER

 

Three of my very favourite historical novels – The Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy – were written by the talented Helen Hollick. In this post, Helen tells us how she became an author, and why she started writing about a legendary king many say never existed. JGH

WHY KING ARTHUR FOR HISTORICAL FICTION? 

HE’S ONLY A MYTH, ISN’T HE?

By Helen Hollick

A long while ago, in a public library far, far away . . . (The library was in a north-east London suburb, and it must have been the mid-1970s, so yes, a long time ago.) I’d started work as a library assistant, straight from leaving school aged 16. I’d told my school career interviewer that I wanted to be a journalist – I didn’t, I wanted to be an author, but I thought that authors were clever people who went to college and university, so I plumped for journalist. My education was somewhat poor and sketchy. This was in the days when the intelligent kids went to grammar school the rest of us were passed on to secondary level, with us girls expected to become shop assistants, hairdressers and housewives. We didn’t even do science until my second year, and even that was quite basic.  I did, however, have a very good English teacher, who must have seen some sort of potential in me because she often gave me extra help and advice with my essays. This careers talk was useless. “A journalist? Don’t be silly Helen, you can’t type!”

Nothing about whether my English was good enough, nothing about the fact that I was so shy I’d have made a hopeless journalist – and for the record, all these years later and about 20 books published, I still only use two fingers on a keyboard.

A job in the local library was suggested, thus, on 4th August, 1969, I found myself in South Chingford Library. I rather enjoyed it because of the access to all those books. I had been an outcast at school because I was always either reading or writing. I’d started scribbling stories when I was about twelve, pony stories because I desperately wanted a pony, so made up a fictional one.

By the time I was 18 I was attempting to write fantasy and science fiction, then one day I picked up a book called The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, about Merlin and the young King Arthur. Set in post-Roman Britain it is fantasy, but with a huge dose of believable reality. A cracking good story, but what inspired me was Ms Stewart’s author’s note where she explained that if Arthur had existed (I stress the if!) he would have been a war lord in the late 400s to early 500s, between the going of the Romans and the coming of the Anglo-Saxons, a period of upheaval and chaos. If Arthur had been real, she went on to say, he would not have lived during the 12th-13th centuries, post-Norman Conquest Medieval knights in armour period, because if he had, there would be indisputable evidence to prove it. Nothing has ever been discovered.

This concept of a post-Roman setting intrigued me. Working in the library meant I had access to unlimited research books. I started studying 5th and 6th century Britain – and the matter of Arthur.

One thing I already knew: I had no liking whatsoever for the common Arthurian legends, all that galivanting off in search of the Holy Grail, Lancelot and Guinevere’s unfaithfulness. I realise, now, that I didn’t like these stories because they had no fact behind them, no link to historical reality. Whereas setting Arthur in the earlier period and cutting out all the Norman myth and propaganda left a possibility for something that verged on the plausible.

I searched for other Arthurian fiction: the rest of Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave/Hollow Hills series for a start, then Rosemary Sutcliff’s wonderful Roman-based novels. (Oh, if only I could write like Rosemary Sutcliff!)

I found The Mists of Avalon. The author Marion Zimmer Bradley has now been discredited for child abuse, which, in hindsight, might explain some of the uncomfortable content of her novel, but even so, this is the only book I have given up reading in utter exasperation. Her Guinevere was such a useless wimp. I threw the book across the room, exclaiming about her character: “Pull yourself together, you silly woman!”

Guinevere, I was certain should be a strong, feisty character, so I decided to abandon my attempts to write a science fiction novel and try something about Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, as I called her – the Welsh spelling.

I researched more of post-Roman Britian and the early history of the Anglo-Saxon/Jute migrations. I emersed myself in the non-fiction books by Geoffrey Ashe and in the end took ten years to write what eventually turned out to be the first two books of my trilogy. The Kingmaking and Pendragon’s Banner were accepted for publication by William Heinemann (now Random House UK) in April 1993, one week after my 40th birthday.

The Trilogy is historical fiction, I cannot claim fact, for a start it is unlikely that ‘Arthur’ ever existed, but I’ve drawn on plausible possibility. There might have been someone who was the idea behind the later, Norman Arthurian stories of courtly romance and the compulsion to join the religious Crusades. Geoffrey Ashe suggested a real chap – well documented – called Riothamus, which is a title meaning something like ‘Kingmost’, not a name. He left Greater Britain (‘England’) to fight in Less Britain (Brittany) and fell in battle somewhere near a Burgundian Roman settlement  – Avallon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avallon.

Sound familiar?

I made my Arthur a British warlord, with several human-frailty faults, and a determination to fight hard to gain his rightful kingdom – and as hard to keep it.

The love of his life is Gwenhwyfar, the only daughter of Prince Cunedda of Gwynedd. She is everything that Marian Bradley’s Guinevere was not. Her relationship with Arthur is not always plain sailing, as with any strong-minded couple they have their quarrels, but they live for each other and have three sons – mentioned in the Welsh legends. Despite Arthur being unfaithful, she does not  have an affair with Lancelot, in fact he does not appear in my Trilogy. Nor any of the knights, apart from Cei and Bedwyr (who are also in the early Welsh legends).

I have no Holy Grail, no turreted castle of Camelot, no magic, no Merlin . . . Instead, I have told my version of the Arthurian legend as a story about  a boy who became a man, who became a king, who became the legend.

Find all Helen’s books on her Amazon Author Page or order from any good bookstore:

https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick (universal link)

 

THE PENDRAGON’S BANNER TRILOGY

1) THE KINGMAKING new edition awarded a bronze medal by the Coffee Pot Book Club annual awards 2023

Amazon UK: https://mybook.to/TheKingmaking_Book1

Amazon USA/Canada: https://tinyurl.com/ys44vh49

2) PENDRAGON’S BANNER

3) SHADOW OF THE KING

ABOUT HELEN HOLLICK:

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am the Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/fantasy series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, Cosy Mystery genre with her Jan Christopher Murder Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of a Smuggler. She is currently writing about the ghosts of North Devon for Amberley Press.

Helen lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon with three dogs and two cats, while on the farm there are four showjumper horses, three fat Exmoor ponies, an old Welsh pony, geese, ducks and  hens. And a few resident ghosts.

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helen.hollick

Blog: promoting good authors & good reads: https://ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com/

Monthly newsletter: Thoughts from a Devonshire Farmhouse subscribe@helenhollick.co.uk 

 

London Underground Crime Fiction

‘If you have ever stood on the edge of a London Underground platform with your feet obediently behind the yellow line waiting for the arrival of the next train and feeling the pressure of the crowd building behind you as the train roars into the station and you briefly think … what if. This is the book for you.’ Gary Powell

Mind The Killer 

Gary Powell, a long serving police officer has written a crime novel set largely beneath London’s streets – in the underground rail system known as the Tube. If you are interested in knowing how real police go about their daily job, and what that can involve, this is a good read. A warning though – like work, this story is not for the squeamish.

Here’s what Gary Powell has to say about his old job and new book.

When choosing a book to read, the location in which the book is set is usually at the forefront of my mind. I enjoy reading fiction with strong characters set in locations – on the whole – familiar to me, for example: Peter James’ Roy Grace series set in Brighton or Mark Billingham’s, Tom Thorne series set in London.

My early reading centred on horror, not crime, with the James Herbert books: The Fog and The Rats set in many London locations including the London Underground system. Even though the plots were a little imaginative to say the least, the real-life locations made the narrative horribly believable and fuelled my imagination.

So, when it comes to my own writing, location/setting and the use of pragmatic, fast-paced dialogue are integral to making my narrative stand out and make the reader believe what they are reading, at that moment, is in fact real – not fictional.

In my crime novel Mind the Killer I have used my in-depth knowledge of London’s transport system (having been a police officer for thirty-three years in the capital) to enhance a reader’s experience. Being able to visualise fictional events at real locations is something I enjoy when reading and writing as well. Mind the Killer not only has scenes at many London Underground stations but also some well-known landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral.

Couple this with the sights and sounds, the smells and the tangible feel of these locations, I believe, makes the narrative jump from the page. Mind the Killer will take you from the zealous and often antagonistic atmosphere of a London football match to the dark, dank surroundings of a disused lift shaft, a sterile mortuary to a fast-moving police surveillance operation.

Just as important as location is the dialogue used by my characters. Here I tend to fall back on many of the personalities – both good and bad – that have crossed my path during my career. I do not base any of my fictional characters on people that I know –a question I frequently get asked, especially by former colleagues. But I do utilise characteristics, especially in relation to dialogue. Any member of the emergency services will tell you that a dark sense of humour is needed to deal with the everyday occurrences they have to face. I have sat in a pub many times with colleagues after a particularly demanding day – maybe a terrorist attack, a suicide or a violent episode when one of your number has been badly beaten or worst of the worst a crime involving children. Over a few pints we would de-brief the day, get it off our chests so that the next morning we can start afresh. To be honest a fly-on-the-wall would find our conversations deeply disturbing. This culture of ‘getting on with it’ is frowned upon by senior officers in today’s police service; some who have little idea what the front-line police officer has to deal with in modern-day Britain. This banter and forthright views, together with a very dark sense of humour is a realistic feature that I endeavour to pass on in my character’s dialogue and has been kindly mentioned in several of the reviews the book has received so far. Of course, not all the humour is dark. DS Marcia Frost: ‘The CSI is here, she’s from New Zealand.’ DI Ryan McNally: ‘Wow that’s a long way to come. Didn’t we have anyone nearer?’

The use of real locations in my writing, I believe, gives the reader a sense of belonging and security, coupled with a dialogue which dramatically pushes the narrative along at a break-neck speed.

Find Gary and his books – fact and fiction – on Amazon and other online books stores.

Amazon.co.uk: Gary Powell: books, biography, latest update

Mind the Killer: Amazon.co.uk: Powell, Gary: Books

 

 

Review of ‘What Happened at the Abbey’ by Isobel Blackthorn

Isobel Blackthorn’s new Gothic thriller is an intriguing page-turner. Written from the point of view of two victims, an abused young wife, and a botany student with mental health issues, the reader is taken into a dour Scots home in the Western Highlands at the end of the 19th century.

 

Blackthorn’s description of the house and setting give the reader a very clear idea of the dilapidated state of the property and the dangerous beauty of its location near a bog, where from the start one suspects something very nasty will happen, if it hasn’t already.

Thanks to the intervention of a Church of England vicar, Ingrid Barker, has escaped her alcoholic husband in southern England and taken the post as housekeeper for the secretive, squabbling McLeod family in the area where she grew up. The role of housekeeper is far beneath Ingrid, but she has no alternatives and a small daughter to care for.

Most of what subsequently occurs is told from Ingrid’s point of view. She is timid and embarrassed by her reduced social standing and, I felt, a natural victim; bullied by her employers and household servants alike. This timidity did become a little wearing at times, I really wanted Ingrid to stand up for herself, but understood why she had lost her self-confidence. Seeing other characters, the aging Mr McCleod, owner of a small distillery, and his three adult children from this restricted point of view meant they remained somewhat flat. We do not learn the siblings’ reasons for being in the house and why they are so antagonistic until towards the final chapter, when the clues and hints and half-told tales Ingrid has been gathering finally explain the tortuous atmosphere in the house.

Blackthorn drops these hints sparingly but it kept me reading into the night. I wanted to know what had happened in the past, and if this put Ingrid in danger. Knowing there were some very unpleasant people under the same roof meant I also feared for the child, Susan’s safety. No spoilers, but the setting and the apparent nature of both family and their servants meant I was waiting for something terrible to happen throughout the book. In this respect it is a compelling read.

Unfortunately, my sense of ‘being there’ was occasionally jolted by modern colloquialisms and a few idiomatic expressions which do not fit with the epoch. As to the plot, there are a few dubious coincidences, but nothing to spoil the story in itself. There was one glaring absence that bothered me, however; Ingrid acquires the post through her church connections, but there is no mention of religious observance in the McLeod household, which in those days, even in remote locations, did not ring true. The bossy cook reads the Bible with Susan, but we do not know if she is Church of Scotland or a Presbyterian, which mattered a great deal then. There are also a few incorrect terms for Protestant clerics that an editor should have picked up.

Having said this, Blackthorn’s writing kept me reading late into the night. If you are looking for quality women’s fiction or an escapist mystery for a winter fireside read, What Happened at the Abbey fits the bill.

JGH

Historical Stories of Exile

An Author in Exile

As many of my readers know, after travelling widely we finally settled down in southern Spain. Without knowing it beforehand, we moved into a locally renowned area for breeders of Pura Raza Español horses (known in UK and USA as Andalusians, I think). It was an ideal spot for me, but after the death of the last of our horses (at the ripe old age of 27), we decided the time had come to move nearer family and urban conveniences such as shops.

For my husband, this has been a return to his home province of Andalucía. For me, this (possibly) final-final move means accepting my voluntary exile as a ‘foreign wife’ is a permanent situation. My lifestyle has been more Latin than British for a long time now, but I still think of North Devon as home. Although to be honest I’m an exile in England these days as well: people do things differently there.

In my experience, being a voluntary exile is a combination of exciting new challenges, learning a language, buying new types of food etc, mixed with occasional bouts of irritation, annoyance and nostalgia. For a writer, however, it has certain advantages. Seeing one’s surroundings with an objective eye leads to a deeper awareness of both culture and the natural environment, which in Spain are closely connected. In the province of Madrid summers are very hot and winters are bitterly cold. As in many other provinces, there is barely a day of springtime or autumn as the year moves from one extreme to the other. So it is with many people: warm, close friendships, or the literally cold shoulder.

From the kitchen window of our new home, I can see the mauve-shaded Sierra de Málaga, where the Moors of Al-Ándalus harvested snow to keep medicines cool. On the other side of the house, beyond a set of hills, lies the now densely crowded Costa del Sol. A coastline once prey to the Barbary corsairs featured in The Chosen Man Trilogy and my current work-in-progress, The Doomsong Voyage. Away from tourist hot-spots, though, it is easy to drift into time travel: pretend there’s no road nearby or enter a small pueblo bar serving local wine or cider and it could be any century at all.

Before coming to Spain, I was living on the Ligurian coast of Italy – hence Ludo da Portovenere (the charismatic rogue of The Chosen Man Trilogy). The Genoese coastline creeps into Ludo’s narrative when, as an involuntary exile, he reminisces about his childhood.

On occasions I had to curb Ludo’s nostalgia to prevent his story becoming a travel brochure: Portovenere, or Porto Venere, is very picturesque. Once the site of a Roman temple to Venus, it was the perfect location to conclude Ludo’s wicked adventures in By Force of Circumstance. I know this because I wasn’t just visiting: I was living there, buying groceries, taking children to school, being part of Italian daily life. Unconsciously, or sub-consciously I was stashing away sights, sounds and anecdotes for future historical crime novels. Authors in exile notice how people behave and interact. We tuck away special moments and the kernels of raw stories like squirrels in autumn. This is how my contribution to the new anthology Historical Stories of Exile came about.

Many years ago, a dear friend told me how her Polish parents met and married in post-war London. Her grandmother had walked from Warsaw to the Bosphorus with two daughters, found a passage to Spain, then to London. It took them two whole years to find a safety – in a city being bombed every night. I thought at the time it merited a full-length novel, but as I have never been to Poland and lack even a basic grasp of the language I didn’t feel up to the task. Nonetheless, the family’s experience stayed in my mind and eventually formed the background to my Victory in Exile short story (details below). The narrative itself links into my WWII Bob Robbins Home Front Mysteries series. It also includes elements told me by my Dutch neighbour when we were living in the Hague back in the ’90s. Ultimately, however, Victory in Exile reflects the current tragedy of innocent refugees trying to find a safe haven in a world at war.

I have never accepted the idea that a work of fiction can be reduced to its author’s life, but autobiographical moments do creep in, especially those related to the emotions. Here’s a scene from my first historical crime novel The Empress Emerald as an example. In the extract, a newly married, naïve Cornish girl arrives at her new family home in Jerez. It is 1920 in the story, what happens is a fictionalised version of my own arrival in Puerto Santa Maria in the 1980s.

The driver stopped the car outside two vast doors, blackened with age and reinforced with iron. They reminded Davina of an illustration in one of her big picture books: Bluebeard’s castle. As if by some sinister magic, a door swung open. Alfonso ushered her into a fern-infested patio. It smelt dank and uninviting. She looked up and around her. The patio was open to the sky, but on all four sides above there were windows. She sensed watching eyes and lowered her gaze.

The autobiographical element ends there. But my experience of being a voluntary exile obviously informs my writing. I know what it is like not to speak the language, not to share commonly acknowledged values; what it is like to be gaped at because your appearance or style doesn’t fit with the locals. I’ve been living in Spain, on and off, for years but people still ask me where I am from. I try not to bristle, and can’t help thinking about what being an involuntary exile must be like for those who can never go home.

 J.G. Harlond

Find the new short story anthology Historical Stories of Exile at: https://mybook.to/StoriesOfExile

If you enjoy action-adventure travel stories and historical fiction here are a couple recommendations for a thumping good read:

You can read about how my wicked hero Ludo da Portovenere creates mayhem in 17th Century Europe in three novels starting with The Chosen Man.

 

Each story is based on some surprising and lesser-known real events involving the Vatican and crowned heads of Europe during the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War. http://getbook.at/TheChosenMan

The Empress Emerald is available on:  https://mybook.to/p6ZMzs

 

 

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