Anna Reviews: Back Behind Enemy Lines

Back Behind Enemy Lines by Chris Bridge
Review by Anna Belfrage

Please see below for information about the FREE COPY we are gifting!

A book about a female English spy during the last months of World War II promises nail-biting tension, of gritty action and moments of despair. Back Behind Enemy Lines delivers all that – but much, much more, being an excellent description of the consequences of all that action and the price of setting duty over your heart.

In 1944, a young woman named Anna is parachuted into Normandy, where she is to present herself as Marie-Claire, a French dairy maid. With Anna comes a radio, money for the Resistance, a large silk map which she is to complete with detailed information about the Germans, and a crate of weapons.

It is a lonely life. Marie-Claire is always on her guard, her French hosts keep their distance, and her human interaction is restricted to her network of informers and the people she delivers cheese and milk to.

The story is told both in the point of view of Marie-Claire in 1944, and the reminiscent point of view of Anna, looking back at the events of those months from a distance of 60 years. It is skilfully done, allowing the present-day Anna to add depth and introspection to the sequence of the events that eventually lead to Marie-Claire’s own chrysalis – a turning point in her life from which she emerges not like a shimmering butterfly, but like a badly singed moth.

There is a moment of absolute fear when Marie-Claire is hauled off to be interrogated by the local Gestapo. The grey-haired, distinguished German knows exactly who she is – but lets her go. This, if anything, increases Marie-Claire’s paranoia, convinced as she is that the Gestapo officer is merely biding his time, waiting to pluck her like a ripe plum when he so desires.

Well-known WW2 spy Odette Sansom

And then there is Pierre, her co-agent, the first man Marie-Claire has ever fallen in love with, the first man to touch her and hold her. There is an absolutely beautiful scene just after they’ve met – but before they’ve become lovers – where Marie-Claire returns home to her little hideout, and Pierre has already left, but her unmade bed holds the indent of his body, a promise of future embraces and intimacies.

Not everything in life is black and white, and as D-Day approaches Marie-Claire finds herself in a situation where she no longer knows who to trust. Her contacts in England bombard her with instructions, Pierre has gone missing, one of her informers has been arrested by the Germans, and it’s as if Marie-Claire is walking about with a noose round her neck, expecting the Gestapo to appear at any moment and drag her off to die.

The building stress and tension is excellently described, and together with Marie-Claire, the reader is forced to leap to a number of conclusions, hoping – just like Marie-Claire – that they are wrong. Meanwhile, there are attacks to plan, railways to blow up, information to be sent back to England, and Marie-Claire submerges herself in her tasks, anything to escape facing the truth as presented by her rational mind, no matter her protesting heart. The mission cannot be put at risk, so ultimately, she has no choice – and for the rest of her life she will wonder if she made the right one.

The climactic events of the summer of 1944 leave Marie-Claire permanently scarred. She is returned to England, debriefed, offered a medal which she refuses, and then, once again Anna, she is left to her own devices – alone with the ghosts of her recent past.

Gestapo in France

Unsentimentally, Chris Bridge describes a person falling apart. Anna sees dead people everywhere, she can’t talk, she can’t sleep – but she can scream. To the modern reader, the diagnosis is self-evident: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To the people of Anna’s generation, no such diagnosis existed. People were told they should be happy they were still alive and encouraged to “get on with it.” Anna sees others like her everywhere. And just like them, she builds a wall around her fragile self, facing the world with a façade that ensures she will never again expose herself to the pain of true emotions. Anna goes through the motion of living – but the woman she was died in 1944, a sprig of white flowers over her bleeding heart, and there is nothing to fill the void left behind.

She marries, has children she quickly discards as being her husband’s rather than hers, and lives on the edges of the family, a silent presence that cooks and cleans and gardens but never interacts at any depth with any of them. Does Anna fail her children? Monumentally. Can she help it? Not really. Now and then, things happen that for an instant penetrate her armour – like when the family goes for a jaunt into the countryside, and the children dare Anna to milk a cow, expecting her to fail. Anna, however, has milked numerous times as Marie-Claire, and as she settles herself on the stool, it all comes back to her.

In the second half of the book, we are with Anna in the present. She is old, she is tired – and she is fighting a battle of wits against her children, who want her out of the house so that they can sell it and take the money. Anna has no intention of dying anywhere else than in her beloved house, the only thing in her life that has inspired any emotions whatsoever since the traumatic events in 1944. And so, Anna is back behind the enemy lines – but this time the enemies are her own flesh and blood, and her allies are two young people whom she discovers by chance and ropes in to help her.

Nathan and Gemma are young, in need of cash and genuinely curious about this old woman who does not hesitate to shoot a man in his shoulder when he threatens them. And when she starts talking about wanting to visit Normandy, they agree to come along to help her, both of them astounded at her fluent French, at her familiarity with the region. Anna is in search of closure. Nathan and Gemma are in search of the future, and yet, despite the sixty-year age gap they connect, and Anna tells them the story she has never told anyone before – not even her children.

The author must have expended endless hours on his research, recreating the Normandy of 1944 in full technicolour, all the way from Marie-Claire’s scratchy French knickers, to the relaxed jargon of the village whores. The casual reference to the rennet added to set the cheese, the odd detail about Marie-Claire’s clothes, of the pinholes in the French money  – it all comes together to create a whole, complete with young German soldiers, stubborn resistance fighters and one very lonely young woman, determined to do her duty no matter the cost. 

Back Behind Enemy Lines is not an easy book to read. It addresses issues that are complex and sensitive, such as Anna’s lack of affection for her children – after all, shouldn’t mothers always love their children? It describes a stunted life, the result of being emotionally crippled by events in the past. It addresses guilt and absolution, the need we all have, deep within, to somehow forgive ourselves. It is also a beautifully written book, with a prose that heaves with carefully contained emotion. This is an author who excels at subtexts, at hinting at the unsaid and allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. What could have been an orgy in heart-wrenching imagery is instead a contained and precise description, all the more powerful for being so sparse. Chris Bridge paints with carefully selected words. A measured prose marches across the pages, now and then flowering into exquisite metaphors, at times bursting apart to reveal the oceans of unhealed pain that lies deep within Anna.

Ultimately, Anna comes face to face with her past and makes the choices she has to make to retain her dignity in the face of her children’s pestering. A flawed and complex character, Anna is first of all a damaged human being, a woman for whom a few brief weeks in 1944 would define the rest of her life. I close the book and can’t but hope that somewhere, somehow, a man stands waiting for her, holding that sprig of white flowers that has haunted her throughout her life.

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Chris Bridge has so generously offered a FREE COPY of Back Behind Enemy Lines to one lucky winner. We will be randomly selecting a name, so to get yours in the hat simply comment below OR at our Facebook link, located here.

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About the author: 

Chris Bridge was born in Hull in 1947 and sent to boarding school aged nine. He studied English and philosophy at Nottingham University, choosing to go there because it had a superb mountaineering club. On graduating in 1969 he became an English teacher, thinking teaching would give him time to write novels. He was wrong about that but his love of the classroom quickly took over. 

In his professional life he never entirely abandoned writing. Until he became a head teacher he used to write the school shows, occasionally starting the process with asking who wanted to be in the cast and tailor-making a script to suit all those students. 

His poetry has been published in Tribune, Scrip, Poetry Nottingham, New Poetry, Pennine Platform and Other Poetry. He has also published articles about education in The Guardian, English in Education and The Independent. 

Back Behind Enemy Lines is his first novel. He is married and lives in North Yorkshire.

Chris Bridge can be found at Twitter and on his Amazon author page. Back Behind Enemy Lines may also be purchased at Amazon and Amazon UK.

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Anna Belfrage is the author of eight published books, all part of The Graham Saga. Set in the 17th century, the books tell the story of Matthew Graham and his time-travelling wife, Alex Lind. Anna can be found on Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and on her website. 

Linda's Reading Lounge: Crimson Shore

Welcome to Linda's Reading Lounge, pull up a cushion and make yourself comfortable and listen, but before we go any further, I just want to tell you that the author is giving away an ebook to one lucky winner - please see details after the review


When I first examined the cover of Crimson Shore by Gill Hamer, the visual imagery suggested butchered bodies washed upon a distant beach. The novel which enfolds is less bloody but every bit as haunting.

Ms. Hamer’s first novel in her Gold Detectives series involves the unhappy topic of exploitation of children by those in a position of trust. However, she treats the topic without sensationalizing it, no mean accomplishment. Tragically, the plot is based upon a disturbingly well-grounded premise. The author has taken a topic which arguably has been overworked in the past several decades and honed it to a plausible, gritty mystery told on two tiers, dealing with not one set of homicides, but two, separated by time, motive and modus operandi.

The scene of the earlier mystery is principally set out in flashbacks and by means of a series of unanswered letters written by a child in a foundling home to a mother the child believes to be recovering from an illness. In the beginning they are newsy and guardedly  hopeful, but plaintive:

Today we went to the little church. The vicar has a wonky eye and Sammy (the author’s brother) made faces all through the carols so I got in trouble for giggling. But some of the music made me sad and made me think of you singing me to sleep. I miss you Mummy. …. You will come won’t you? …

Later the letters grow more desperate:

I’m keeping my promise to write every few weeks, but I am reelly worried that you never write back. I keep asking Mrs. Gwynne to dubble and dubble dubble check the post. I really can’t believe you’ve haven’t got my letters. Why don’t you write back?

While the letters seem a one dimensional means to advance the plot of a complex mystery, in this case, they not only alleviate the need for pages of back story, but serve as a repository for myriad clues, leaving a reader finishing the last pages and saying, ‘I should have known.’

The second tier of the mystery enfolds in the present, when fresh bodies begin to turn up in unusual places.  At the center of the mystery is a once-elegant beachfront estate on Anglesey Island off the northwest coast of Wales, a sparsely populated area separated from the Welsh mainland by a narrow strait, an isolated setting where people traditionally mind their business. Random bodies are a rare experience. During a portion of its history the mansion was the site of a foundling home known as Sandy Beach, but for years it has been unoccupied.

As one would expect of an insular community, the idea of a serial killer at work is unpopular with the residents of Anglesey. However the head of the assigned homicide team, Detective Sergeant Dara Brennan, is convinced there is a link between the murder victims, which goes beyond the usual dynamic of a serial killer.
The means of disposal of the corpses, the weapons used, and the degree of violence are all very different. Cryptic messages sometimes left with the bodies are little more than pieces, each seeming to come from a different puzzle. These are not signature killings, and the protagonist Dara is convinced they are not random. His interpretation of the crimes puts him at odds with his colleagues and superiors as the body count mounts.

Constructing a mystery along parallel paths is a difficult literary device to employ without one story line overwhelming the other, but Ms. Hammer meets the challenge by allowing the two threads to intertwine just enough keep the reader curious as to how the puzzle fits together. The contemporary investigation is told principally from Dara’s point of view while he wrestles with demons of his own. His life is crumbling around him. A successful resolution of the murders promises more than a boost to a floundering career, but a step forward in his quest to restore his self esteem. Yet his interpretation of the evidence is at odds with his colleagues and the public interest. Even his partner and new lover  D. I. Kelly Jones is losing patience with him. As his personal life goes into a tailspin, the investigation seems to be the only stable factor in his daily existence, and that, too, is threatened by his inability to seize control of his alcoholism and libido. He is not the stereotypical hero.

Crimson Shore is a well-crafted mystery with a large and diverse cast of characters who in spite of their number retain individual idiosyncrasies which keep the reader from mixing them up. The power struggle within the investigative team is well done. The plot is straightforward once the separate story threads unravel. Some of the facts have been stretched a tad too taught but fortunately not enough to ruin the story. In spite of a few convoluted twists of plot, Crimson Shore is less far-fetched than many cases I prosecuted. The author has constructed an authentic rendering of a complex homicide investigation, one hampered by interoffice rivalries, the protagonist’s sexual exploits and the personal problems of its other principals. None of these are beyond the norm for law enforcement professionals working under stress. I was especially impressed with the overall accuracy of the forensic aspects of the case.

I recommend Crimson Shore to those who enjoy British police procedurals reminiscent of Ian Rankin and anyone who likes a well-written mystery with a subject appropriate amount of violence but little gore.  Sensitive readers will be relieved to know this is not a novel dealing with child sexual assault, and neither the violence nor the sex is gratuitous or overly graphic. Nevertheless, it is a dark and disturbing story. The isolated setting of the crimes adds to the credibility of the plot and the Welsh flavor of the narrative is a plus.

While I do not read with a red pencil stuck behind my ear, I stay alert for errors and found none. Changes in point of view were formatted so as to be easily perceived. My only criticism involves the presentation of a rather unlikely antagonist. However, before the first body is discovered, the killer in Ms. Hamer’s novel has had ten years to plan the killing spree and a clear vision of how the story is going to end. The conclusion leaves the reader pondering whether D.S. Dara Brennan or the serial killer solves the crimes but leaves the reader sensing justice has been served.

I will be looking for further works from author Gillian E. Hamer.

About the Author

Born in the industrial Midlands, Gillian's heart has always yearned for the wilds of North Wales and the pull of the ocean.

A company director for twenty years, she has written obsessively for over a decade, predominantly in the crime genre. She has completed six full length novels and numerous short stories.

After completing a creative writing course, she decided to take her writing to the next level and sought representation. She is a columnist for Words with Jam literary magazine, a regular theatre goer and avid reader across genres.

She splits her time between Birmingham and a remote cottage on Anglesey where she finds her inspiration and takes long walks on deserted beaches with her Jack Russell, Maysie.

She can also be found at these sites

  Google +

Twitter

Goodreads

Website

The author is graciously offering a giveaway of Crimson Shore for one lucky winner. Just leave a comment and that winner could be you!

Facebook users click here to leave a comment on our blog page. 

Linda Root is the author of the three books in the Legacy of the Queen of Scots series; next in the series launches April 2015. Root also writes historical fantasy fiction: The Green Woman with a sequel set to be released in summer 2015. 

Louise Reviews: Tizzie

Tizzie by P.D.R. Lindsay

Review by Louise E. Rule.

Please see below for information about the FREE COPY you could win!

I have a great interest in book covers, and what goes into the making of a great cover. The cover design for Tizzie, by Dawn Keur, gives abstract clues about what lies within, and I like that conundrum. For example, the countryside to the left, the quintessential Yorkshire landscape, and the staircase to the right. What could that staircase mean? Keur's cover design is such that it filled me with a need to look inside. It is only after one starts to read the book, however, that the clues on the cover gradually reveal themselves.

This is a book which demonstrates the stark contrast between the life of the single woman and the married woman in the 19^th century. P.D.R. Lindsay’s story is written in retrospect, first beginning in the summer of 1897, then regressing to January of 1887. The story takes place during 1887, with each chapter being headed as a season and a month, which gives a palpable sense of progress through the farming year. Our eponymous character, more to the point, our heroine, works on the family’s farm in Yorkshire, inherited by her brother, Jack Cawthra, and his wife, Maggie. The work is hard, and Tizzie is expected to do so much more than her fair share of the work, which includes not only milking the cows, and making the cheese and butter for the family, but also making and selling butter and cheese on market days.

Tizzie’s niece, Agnes, who is ten years of age, is set to follow in her aunt’s footsteps if her father and mother have anything to do with it. Tizzie is determined not to let this happen. Agnes is treated badly by all except her aunt, so she cleaves to her as her only companion and comfort. Agnes’ brothers are given every advantage, as was often the way in the 19^th century, but Agnes, who is a bright scholar and has dreams of becoming a teacher, is destined to be a drudge for her eldest brother when he takes a farm of his own. This is where this riveting story really begins, as Lindsay cleverly reveals, little by little, the story of Tizzie. Lindsay begins her story in media res, hooking the reader immediately into Tizzie’s world.

Tizzie leant against the kitchen range, ears straining. Were that Jack stirring? By, she hoped her brother wouldn’t catch her still inside. He wouldn’t half carry on.

Straight away Lindsay has made the reader aware that there is a history of friction between Tizzie and her brother, and that he has her life mapped out for her. For me, her life equates to familial slavery, as each member of the family treats Tizzie with such disdain, and as Lindsay takes us through the following events, page by page, it is evident that Tizzie feels this too.

The parlour clock struck six. The cows waited, and Jack’d be clattering down stairs, champing to get some milk into cans and off on the milk train to Leeds. Best move now she were warmed up. Tizzie bent to place her hands as close as she could to the fire door. At least she’d take warm fingers out to start with. Footsteps boomed overhead. Jack, already in a bate by the weight of that tread. Best keep out of his way, or he’d start her day with name calling, older brother insults, Skinny Lizzie, or Twiggy Tizzie, them being the most polite, and go on to ranting about sisters who didn't do their duty or their proper share. Not the best way to start a day’s toil being on the rough end of a Cawthra temper storm. She grabbed her woollen hat, gloves, and scarf, flung her heavy work shawl over her homespun jacket and slid quickly out of the back door.

This short extract is very revealing. The bullying brother, the cold weather, the hard work, and clothes that were homemade, by cloth woven by themselves, painting vividly the divide between the farming community and the local gentry. The book is narrated throughout in the Yorkshire dialect, but not so heavily as to be unreadable. At times I was unsure if it was Tizzie narrating the story, or was it her thoughts. I even considered that it was the person relating the past events, but there are many moments of which that person would not have been aware. Eventually, therefore, I decided it was a way of keeping the story firmly set within the bounds of Yorkshire, especially as there were many dialectal words used throughout, not only in the narration, but, of course, in the speech of the characters.

The characters are well formed. I could imagine them clearly in my mind’s eye: how they looked, how they dressed, how their voices sounded, and their mannerisms. These traits Lindsay has cleverly woven into the story without the descriptions being obvious and intrusive, rendering a gentle assimilation of the characters into the readers psyche, if you will.

I love language, and dialectal language particularly. I did find that I had to look up some of the dialectal words as their meanings were not evident to me. This was easily done with the help of a good dictionary. For example, Hagman Heigh was easy enough, Hogmanay, but shippon and lanthorns I had to look up. They mean cattle shed, and lanthorns is an archaic spelling for lanterns. Two more words, which I found completely baffling, were thole and snecked. Thole is archaic Scottish and means ensure without complaint, and snecked means latch on a door or window – (opened or closed). I read them out loud and loved how they sounded. Using language in this way adds layers to a story that would otherwise have been missing, and the story lacking because of it. It also adds authenticity to the characters.

I quickly began to have a great admiration for Tizzie, not only in she as a person, but in what she is able to achieve throughout her working day. Then there is her unequivocal love for Agnes, the daughter that she would never have, and here we are quickly brought to understand that Agnes is her driving force, a driving force which carries the story forward.

Although the story starts slowly at first, it gradually builds into an ever increasing battle of dilemmas, taking the reader on such a ride, that the bucolic scene of milking cows and the quintessential dairy maid ideal, with buckets of milk hanging around her neck on a yoke, are quickly dashed. The harsh and often brutal reality of life on a farm in the late 19^th century, entwined with the habitual cruelty that Tizzie and her niece, Agnes, have to endure is heart-breaking. Will Tizzie and Agnes ever have a better life to enjoy? Will brother Jack and sister-in-law Maggie ever appreciate all the hard work that Tizzie does? Or will their lives just get harsher? There are so many questions needing answers as the story progresses.

In conclusion, I would have to say that Lindsay’s unique style of prose has the subtlety of being able to manipulate the reader into the belief that they themselves could actually help Tizzie and Agnes. Whether it is the continued use of the Yorkshire dialect, or whether it is the undeniable investment the reader gives to the characters, I am not sure. What I would say is this: whichever it is, or maybe it’s both, Lindsay succeeds in such a way that on finishing the book I was surprised to find that I was, in fact, still in the twenty-first century, and not back in the nineteenth century, so wrapped up was I in the story.

If you would like a chance to win a FREE COPY of Tizzie, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here.

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About P.D.R. Lindsay (from her Amazon biography)

P.D.R. Lindsay

Born in Ireland, brought up in Yorkshire, educated in England, Canada and New Zealand, writer P.D.R. Lindsay is also Mrs. Salmon, Ms. Lindsay-Salmon, and even for eight years in Japan, Professor Lindsay-Salmon.

So many facets to my life have made for a lively and interesting existence. Certainly all those different roles and the places around the world where I have lived filled my head with stories. Stories I can now tell. 

Home is beautiful Otago Province in New Zealand. A place of peace and space, most conducive to writing. 

My stories are mainly contemporary, but my novels are historical, because what I want to write about is clearer seen at a distance. Readers would not sympathise with a modern hero or heroine in the situations I put them in, but seen at a distance my main characters are more understandable. The people of 17th century England, 19th century England or New Zealand or India have much to say to us today. 

P.D.R. Lindsay can be found on Twitter and her website.

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Louise E. Rule is author of Future Confronted.

Marius Reviews: Piano from a 4th Storey Window

Piano from a 4th Storey Window by Jenny Morton Potts
Review by Marius Gabriel

Remember to see below for info on how you can win one of THREE FREE COPIES!

This is everything a novel by a new author should be. It's fresh, quirky, different, affecting, beautifully written – and it hugely entertaining.

Piano from a 4^th Storey Window is a very rich novel. For one thing, it's a very brave book and a very honest one. It doesn't flinch from themes that are often glossed over in fiction, but which are part of everyday life, for better or for worse.

It's also a book suffused with human warmth, with characters so vivid and alive that you find yourself forgetting they are the author's invention, and very soon start to think of them as real.

Perhaps most importantly of all, it's a wonderful love story -- not a story about the kind of "love" where people tie each other up and get out the whips, nor the kind of "love" that exists only on luxury yachts and mansions, but regenerative love, love which survives tragedy and heartbreak, love which makes the broken whole again.

The protagonists, Marin and Lawrence, are two bright young things who believe that they are "not like other people." But life is to show them that they are not immune from the terrible things that happen to "other people."

She is a teacher, he a bookseller (both brave occupations, you will notice) and each comes trailing a history -- previous lovers, family problems, troublesome relations, work issues. Her background is a home governed by the rigid rules of a religious sect. His background is secular, disorganized and permissive. She is a sensitive introvert who thinks too much, he doesn't give a damn. She is shy and easily wounded, he is the centre of a bustling social life. If they are to make their love work, they need to surmount the problems in their past, as well as the whole boatload of problems their own relationship brings them.

Through pain and conflict, they are to achieve maturity, as well as a measure of self-understanding.  They will leave much of their old selves behind, along the journey. But the destination promises to be sublime, and they need to have courage to get there.

A feature of the novel is the portrayal of a number of medical issues and conditions. These are explored and described with great compassion; the author's humanity shines through at these sad moments.

And yes, this novel does have passages that are almost unbearably sad. And there are moments of tenderness that are handled so exquisitely that you will find tears in your eyes. But it is also a funny, witty, sexy and lively novel which dances along at a brisk pace. The erotic scenes are particularly well-done. The description of Lawrence and Marin's first time together is, I think, quite unique in fiction!

The characters, incidentally, range from childhood to old age, and each is handled with insight and accurate observation. This is a cunning author, and I feel rather sympathetic for her friends: she strikes me as the sort of person who might put you in a book when you weren't looking.

While reading this, I asked myself more than once whether this was chick lit, a book for women only?  Would I recommend to a male friend? Well, I absolutely loved it, and I'm a man; I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a male reader. The quality of the writing, and the depth of feeling in this novel, set it apart from the field. Not just apart – head and shoulders above.

This was one of the best reads of the year so far for me. The author writes beautifully, in an intimate, heart-to-heart style which draws the reader in from the first page. Engaging as her style is, it's not for careless readers. You need to concentrate on the words, and her beautifully-constructed sentences sometimes repay a second or even a third re-reading.

All in all, Piano from a 4th Storey Window is a triumph. A beautiful book with a beautiful ending, it develops a tremendous emotional charge quite unique in these days of too-clever, too-cool fiction. If you're looking for heartfelt, sincere, courageous fiction for grown-ups, this is it.

Highly recommended to all readers. It's hard to imagine anyone who won't fall in love with this novel and its cast of remarkable characters.

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Jenny Morton Potts has so graciously and kindly offered THREE FREE COPIES of Piano from a 4th Storey Window to a few lucky readers. To have your chance at winning one, simply comment below to get your name in the draw OR at this review's Facebook thread located here. 

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About the author:

Jenny Morton Potts was born in a smart, dull suburb of Glasgow where the only regular excitement was burglary. Attended a smart, dull school where the only regular excitement was the strap. Worked in smart, dull sales and marketing jobs until realising she was living someone else’s life. 

Escaped to Gascony to make gîtes. Knee deep in cement and pregnant, Jenny was happy. Then autism and a distracted spine surgeon who wanted to talk about The Da Vinci Code wiped out the order. Returned to wonderful England – and unlikely ever to leave again – Jenny, with assistance from loyal hound, walked and swam her way back to manageable health.
Jenny would like to see the Northern Lights but worries that’s the best bit and should be saved till last. Very happily, and gratefully, partnered for 28 years, she ought to mention, and living with inspirational child in Derbyshire.

You can find more information, including about the movie version of Piano from a 4th Storey Window, at the author's website.

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Marius Gabriel is the author of The Testament Of Marcellus and a number of historical thrillers. His new novel, Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye, will be available August 2015. You can find him at his Amazon UK author page as well as Twitter.

Guest Post: Book of the Month Winner Alison J. Butler Discusses Her Next Book

The Hanging of Margaret Dickson by Alison J. Butler

April 2015 Book of the Month Award

First of all, I'd like to thank Stuart S. Laing for choosing my novel The Hanging of Margaret Dickson for Book of the Month - it's been a real privilege and honour. Also, my gratitude to all members of The Review for kindly asking me to write a guest post.

Okay, so here goes, my first guest post for The Review… a little piece on writing Scottish historical fiction, and a sneak preview of my second novel... Baron's Law. So what prompted me to write another novel featuring 18th century Scotland? Well, I read this excerpt in a Crime and Punishment of Scotland book and decided I had to write a novel about it …

Baron’s Law...After the Reformation, the barons became heritors of their parish churches and strictly upheld church discipline. Many of them used their courts to reinforce it. At Stichill in 1696, delinquents who broke the Church’s law were also sentenced by the baron’s court to be chained in the stocks or placed in the jougs during the laird’s pleasure.  

For the slightest offence or imagined misdemeanour, punishments including torture, which was legal in Scotland until 1709, were used. Men were hung up by their thumbs, hung by the feet in a room filled with nauseous smoke and had knotted strings tied around their head. Women had red-hot tongs placed between their shoulders and under their armpits until the tongs went cold, fingers were deliberately broken, faces branded and backs lashed with a whip. The barons had epileptics gelded and lepers burned alive.

Strange though it may seem, I've always had a keen interest in the history of crime and punishment, particularly in England and Scotland, and once I looked further into it, this baron's law seemed bizarre and extreme, even by 18th century standards (a time when the bloody code still existed). In short, I was amazed to discover, the power of Scottish barons seemed more in keeping with feudalism and bygone days of serfs and vassals. In the course of my research I stumbled across the true story of the ‘collier serf collar’ and the plight of colliers (coal or tin/lead miners) in 18th century Scotland. Most folk are aware of the ‘triangular trade' and slavery, but I wondered how many people had heard of the collier serfs, a breed apart, ostracised from polite society and made outcasts in parts of Scotland. These mining folk were little more than slaves, doomed to servitude in the mines, property of the coal master… and their children sadly suffered the fate.

So, that's how I got to writing a second novel on 18th century Scotland. I'd already researched the era on a grand scale, so I was already familiar with Georgian folk, rich or poor…cautious of the pitfalls I could easily make ... therefore avoiding modern phrases, words, expressions, or including gas lamps, potatoes, animal species or plants that did not belong in 18th century Scotland etc. And yet, this time I realised I could not be expected to get everything right; we all make mistakes - all I could do is try my very best to capture the time.

Certain dilemmas occur. Should I include Scottish dialect, or keep the language simple and clear so that all readers understand? Should I try to refer to the language used in the 18th century, or again keep it simple for the modern reader? Well, because I'm English and not Scottish, sadly I'm not worthy of a Walter Scott-type writing style, nor am I an Arthur Miller, whose dialogue in The Crucible is genius. I've kept it simple! I can only aspire to be like them one day ;)

So, to the synopsis, a craft I am yet to master. To simplify I imagine my readers asking me the simple question: 'Well what's this second book all about?’

Okay, so imagine a huge Scottish castle in the 1700's. Within it rules a cruel, misogynistic and handsome man, Baron Bothwell of Castle Wood. He has a menopausal wife, Matilda, whom he ignores, and a young son, Robbie, whom he adores. In short, the baron does as he pleases and mistreats his serfs. One of his peasants, Magnus Styhr, in an effort to avoid the 'right of first night' (a nobleman's right to take his serf's virginity on her wedding night) lies with his betrothed, Sarah, to ensure the child she carries is his and not the baron's. When Baron Bothwell discovers this he imprisons Magnus in the dungeons and banishes Sarah to an asylum, where he abuses her. A French nun at the asylum, because of this mistreatment, flees from the asylum with Sarah.

Meanwhile, the baron places man traps around his castle to deter poachers. His son Robbie steps into one of the man traps and is gravely injured. The baron cannot face his son, and then flees in search of Sarah who is now missing from the asylum... he assumes she is in France (as that is where the nun is from) and boards a ship at Leith bound for France. But before he goes, he has a brass collar made for Magnus to wear around his neck and has it inscribed...   ‘Magnus Styhr, gifted by Baron Bothwell of Castle Wood as a perpetual servant to Sir John Stuart of Newton Parish 1754.’

Magnus Styhr is sent to work in coalmines, a brass collar around his neck to announce his serfdom. He becomes a hero of the collier people and plans to return to Castle Wood to seek revenge for his time in the dungeons and servitude in the mines. Baron Bothwell, the very man Magnus seeks to avenge, meanwhile, saves a cabin boy from being beaten to death on a ship sailing back to Leith.

In the midst of this tale, I have a crippled son mourning his absent father. An ill-treated wife seeking solace from her husband's steward. An eccentric wise woman who holds secrets that could seal everybody's fate, and a nun and peasant woman who have a powerful emotional bond...I'm yet to decide the ending.

My parting words...’Yes - I'm getting on with it. Book two - Baron's Law - is to be released very soon.

Alison J. Butler

To read Stuart's review of The Hanging of Margaret Dickson, click here.

About the Author:

Alison Butler was born in Liverpool, England in the 1970s. She's worked as a checkout girl, bar-maid, model and singer. Alison is married to Dave Butler and has four children - Whitney, Belinda, Isabella and Oliver.

Alison worked for over ten years in the entertainment industry, working as a professional singer. Following the birth of her fourth child she gave up singing to study for a social sciences degree.

While researching for her dissertation, Alison stumbled across a small excerpt in a history of crime and punishment book. It briefly described the true story of a woman named Margaret Dickson who survived a public execution. This incredible story inspired Alison to write her debut novel, using 18th century judicial court court records, broadsheets and marriage/birth certificates.

She can be followed on Twitter here. 

The Hanging of Margaret Dickson may also be purchased at Amazon  and Amazon UK. 

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Stuart S. Laing is the author of The Robert Young of Newbiggin Mysteries. He can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Lisl Reviews: Martyrs and Traitors

Martyrs and Traitors: A Tale of 1916 by Marina Julia Neary
On the 99th anniversary of the Easter Rebellion
Review by Lisl

See below for information on your chance to win a FREE COPY of Martyrs and Traitors

A young Bulmer Hobson

With Never Be at Peace, Marina Julia Neary opens up to readers’ awareness and imagination the world that existed behind the 1916 Easter Rebellion, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)-led event doomed to failure by its own participants. To be seen in this telling of events would be the backdrop of theatre consumed and surrounded by love affairs and casual assignations; jealousies and rivalries; and the rise and fall of groups and leaders of questionable sustainability.

Chief amongst these is Bulmer Hobson, an upper middle-class  Quaker and Ulsterman, whose northern accent somehow is charmingly evident despite Neary’s choice not to emphasize burrs and brogues. He appears once more here in Martyrs and Traitors, which also recounts the events of the Dublin-centered insurrection, zooming in to brighten the field and all within it. Though he is the novel’s central character, the story is not told from Hobson’s point of view, but rather that of an omniscient narrator with the purpose of additionally seeing him the way others do, a narrative choice that develops Hobson’s person even further and also allows his interactions to provide greater insight into who he is.

This Neary pulls off with skill, aplomb, grace and remarkable understanding of this era’s events as well as implications that affect every moment. She brings in Helena Molony, Hobson’s first love, often to showcase the pair’s opposite approaches to their nation’s fight for freedom, not to mention the incandescence of Helena’s nature and the hue she brings to her perspectives.

“Over there,” she gasped, squeezing Bulmer’s arm. 
“You’re in luck. I’m so glad he came out tonight.”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

“Mr. Pearse, the founder of St. Edna’s.”

Bulmer knew all about the school—another educational experiment, not much different from the agricultural commune in Raheny. Except, instead of vegetables, the test subjects were boys.

“Why are you whispering, Helena?”

Her pupils were dilated with indignation. “Well, because . . .  his name’s not to be taken in vain.”

“Is he holy?”

“To many people, he is, believe it or not! Hobson, are you merely innerving me, or are you truly so ignorant of the man’s contribution?”

“We all contribute. Most patrons here have done something for Ireland. And yet they greet each other in their natural speaking voices. We’re not in mourning, are we?”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Pearse is in mourning at the moment, yes.”

“Let me guess . . .  a magazine rejected his poem?”

“You unapologetic blasphemer.”

Hobson being guarded by his kidnappers

Despite Bulmer’s prime spotlight, Neary never allows other characters to function as mere curtain warmers. Their presence indicates the reality that no figure exists in a vacuum but the author’s treatment of them also dignifies their own roles in Hobson’s life as well as that of Ireland. Indeed, the privileged position of opening is awarded to those who kidnap Hobson before the rebellion gets going, aware that he had already added sufficient gum to their works in his efforts to prevent the entire episode from occurring on schedule, thus reducing the number of participants. Neary’s streamlining prowess reveals a great deal about their natures without consigning them to stock status, as she simultaneously shines the spotlight on Pearse—“[Dublin] was about to be demolished by a mob of self-proclaimed patriots in a collective suicide fantasy devised by a handful of IRB bullies under Patrick Pearse’s leadership”—and commences his requirement throughout the novel to work for every strand of sympathy he gets.

This is not Neary’s doing; as she herself states, she doesn’t attempt to sway readers in either direction, “[n]ot that you need to take sides to enjoy a good historical novel.” Pearce’s voice is persuasive, but she presents historical information, relentlessly researched, and even when shared through the filter of Hobson’s perceptions, trusts readers to make their own choices about this moment in time when a group of citizens reached out for the freedom that hitherto had proved so elusive.

With Herbert Hughes and another
pal on a folkloric expedition

The novel does have its light moments—in fact rather many of them. Hobson himself is presented as somewhat caustic, though his sarcasm or insensitivity—dependent on where one stands upon delivery—is characterized by his willingness to unleash it even upon himself. Moreover, while not everyone thanks him for the truth within his statements, specifically regarding IRB multiplexing that would, he warned, lead only to collapse, he issues them anyway, at great risk to himself.

“The only way to free Ireland permanently is by moral insurrection. Our men need to stop drinking and enlisting in the British army and police force. We must expand and support our own industries. I’m not suggesting that we not bear arms at all, but we must use those arms for self-defense, not staging frivolous rebellions to flaunt our reckless courage before the oppressor.”

Reader appreciation for him goes deeper because he is portrayed realistically; no one can rightfully claim Neary’s Hobson as “too perfect”; he certainly is as egotistical as any of his adversaries, and has a way with words. It may be that the logic he employs is too pure in form for casual recognition, despite its simplicity: “No man has the right to risk the fortunes of a country to create for himself a niche in history.” He demands a free Ireland, but will not accept a nation that bleeds itself in it attempts to become whole.

“A body that’s kept clean of harmful substance and engaged in wholesome activity can heal itself. In the same manner, a nation of sober, industrious citizens can claim its independence.”

Dinny McCullough and three Royal Irish
Constabulary men

As the novel moves on we catch glimpses of events also portrayed from a different angle in Never Be at Peace and as Easter Monday and the week come and go, the narrative picks up speed, reflecting the way in which everything since the last uprising has led to this, and the rapidity with which life now seems to pass us by, once something we have toiled long, arduous years for has taken its final bow.

Apart from the initial opening giving us a glimpse into just pre-rebellion, Neary’s tale—aptly titled as one of many portraits of the time—moves along linearly, which for this complicated historical era and cast of performers works best. Post-rebellion we see more of a Hobson we might not always have preferred—he is portrayed as, amongst other descriptors, a user and a traitor—but who succeeds in capturing us as the shared heartbreak of a partitioned nation continues to cast individuals into categories (i.e. religion) that guide us in “knowing” whether we are meant to love or hate them.

For those who grow old and at this time watch their friends and fellows begin to leave this world, it surely must have been all that much more bitter. Neary’s gift of words—a vast repertoire of communication; descriptive action phrases instantly and delightfully recognizable, even when we haven’t ever seen them before; and the ability to bring laughter to our lips when we would prefer to weep—mercifully carries us through these final years, as fast as they pass by. The tenderness with which Hobson’s daughter treats him reminds us of his vulnerability—and our own—as we can at least be grateful for this solidarity amongst so much else that has been divided, personally as well as societally.

Bulmer at Jemmy Hope's graveside

Martyrs and Traitors is an analysis as much as the telling of one man’s role in a movement and place in the world, public and private, a man once categorized by the British as “the most dangerous man in Ireland,” whose rising star really did make him dangerous to Ireland’s rulers, for had his confederates followed his lead, they may have achieved differently—to the detriment of the British. However different to that it turned out, Hobson himself might be the first to point out that what we mourn in life is eclipsed by the freedom of soaring over the sea, as a star burning, for others, its lantern of liberty. 

“This novel is my hymn for all prematurely extinguished stars.”

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Marina Julia Neary has so kindly offered a FREE COPY of Martyrs and Traitors for one lucky winner. If you would like to enter the draw, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here.

About the Author

A self-centered, only child of classical musicians, Marina Julia Neary spent her early years in Eastern Europe and came to the United States at the age of thirteen. Her literary career revolves around depicting military and social disasters, from the Charge of the Light Brigade, to the Irish Famine, to the Easter Rising in Dublin, to the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl some thirty miles away from her home town. Notorious for her  abrasive personality and politically incorrect views that make her a persona non grata in most polite circles, Neary explores human suffering through the prism of dark humor, believing that tragedy and comedy go hand in hand.

Her debut thriller Wynfield's Kingdom was featured on the cover of the First Edition Magazine in the United Kingdom and earned the praise of the Neo-Victorian Studies Journal. After writing a series of novels dealing with the Anglo-Irish conflict (including Brendan Malone, Martyrs & Traitors and Never Be at Peace) she takes a break from the slums of London and the gunpowder-filled streets of Dublin to delve into the picturesque radioactive swamps of her native Belarus. Saved by the Bang: A Nuclear Comedy is a deliciously offensive autobiographical satire featuring sex scandals of Eastern Europe's artistic elite in the face of political upheavals. 

You can find more about Neary and other books at her blog as well as her Facebook and Amazon author pages. The companion novels for Never Be at Peace, Brendan Malone: The Last Fenian and Martyrs & Traitors: A Tale of 1916, as well as others, may also be purchased at Amazon and Amazon UK. A potential addition to follow up the trilogy is entitled The Lily of Ulster.

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Note: This post has been updated with additional photographs