Book of the Month Award: Summer Vacay!

The Review’s Book of the Month Award: Summer Hiatus

Having just about reached the year’s midway mark, we at The Review have been anticipating this point with a great deal of thought and contemplation. We began 2015 with a new initiative, our Book of the Month Award (BOMA), and have had tremendous success. Moving forward we want this to continue and bring even greater attention to deserving authors. Toward this endeavor, staff have decided that the award process shall go into summer hiatus and resume in autumn. 

The Review admins have engaged in conversations over the months, pounding out ideas for how to achieve more as well as streamline the process and sharpen edges to bring the BOMA to tips of tongues and become more competitive—by its wider exposure and with many more indie authors reaching out for the win.

Of course, maintaining this dialogue can be challenging. As an international blog, The Review is run by writers and authors who rarely come face to face and often are required to juggle duties, decisions and time zones in other than real time—that is to say, via messaging only. It can become tedious, to say the least, or slow down the process, but our professional group of admins has done a remarkable job of staying on top of a variety of processes not only to keep everything running smoothly, but also to achieve this while maintaining deadlines and limitations on wait periods for authors and reviewers.

Some readers may already be aware that this method of operation is soon to get a bit of a boost in that Paula and Louise, who live in England, in a few short days will travel to meet with Lisl in the Great Land—Alaska. They will be able to get with each other and discuss all of the above and much more, and waiting time for a response will not exceed the length of time it takes to swallow a mouthful of tea!

The Three Heads, as they are affectionately known, plan to take full advantage of the time together to see about mapping out these and other goals for The Review, and the possibility that the summer hiatus may become a permanent seasonal break, to read more books to choose from, re-assess the process and progress and brainstorm ideas for improvement and expansion.

Of course, they will aim as well to do a little whale watching and gold panning in the Land of the Midnight Sun!

As we approach the The Review’s second anniversary we look forward, as always, to supporting indie authors and books you will want to spend your time with—and doing this while also supporting the growth of ourselves and others.

We’ll see you there!

Mount Susitna, Sleeping Lady
Lisl writes about her here

Lisl Reviews: To Catch a Falling Star

To Catch a Falling Star by Anna Belfrage

Lisl reviews and reminisces about The Graham Saga

See below for your chance to win a FREE COPY of 

To Catch a Falling Star

Drawing June 13
The drawing has been held and a winner announced at Facebook.
Please see new reviews for more chances!

The Prodigal Son is a recipient
of the B.R.A.G. Medallion 

As the eighth and final installment in Anna Belfrage’s The Graham Saga series, To Catch a Falling Star found me reluctant to read as well as hungry to devour it. I’d accidentally fallen in with Alex Lind, who beckoned me into her world—both of them, time traveler that she is—when I reviewed number three, The Prodigal Son. It transported me and, knowing I simply had to read all from the start, I set out, smugly comfortable with my fat stack of books, assured of a brilliant journey that would last for some time to come. Reading Falling Star’s opening lines began the end of this long journey.

Isaac Lind should not have drunk quite as much as he did that evening, but flushed by the success of his latest exhibition, he allowed himself to be dragged along, to be toasted in pint after pint of lager.

He caressed the wooden frame of the picture, a depiction of a somnolent courtyard[…] In the middle a fountain, a constant welling of water[…] In olive greens and muted browns, with the odd dash of whites and startling blues, the water spilled over the fountain’s edge to fall in transparent drops towards the ground[…] He tried to break eye contact with the falling water, but now he heard it as well, the pitter-patter of drops on wet stone, the trickling sound of water running through a narrow channel, and there, just where he had painted it, a minute point of white beckoned and promised, entrapping his eyes in a shaft of dazzling light.

A Rip in the Veil is a B.R.A.G.
Medallion honoree and Book
of the Month Award winner

Isaac’s mother, Alex, had fallen through a rip in the veil of time when he was just a toddler, and apart from one short encounter, has not seen her since. His grandmother’s paintings having played a role in these events, this opening then serves as foreboding. Now 32, a veteran time traveler at it again, certainly he may be able to see his mother once more. Apart from the vagaries of shifting through eras, the relationship is complicated by mother and son’s personal history, pertaining both to Isaac’s birth as well as his perception of Alex’s “abandonment” of him. Indeed, she chose to remain in the seventeenth century where she landed, and by the time Isaac falls through once more, she has raised a family, homesteaded in the colonies and seen too much in the passage of her “adopted” time.

Initially, Isaac’s appearance is welcome to those familiar with the saga, for he has not played much of a role in the previous installments, apart from his one “visit,” although Alex does guiltily think of him from time to time. But even new readers fall in quickly, given Belfrage’s masterful shaping of dialogue and events that fill in pertinent bits of information. Isaac is a sympathetic character and from the get-go, readers follow him hopefully.

As these events play out, Alex is experiencing a separation of her own. After years of feuding between her husband, Matthew, and his younger brother, Luke—often with terrible consequences—a truce of sorts has been called and the couple prepare to leave their colonial home, taking only a portion of their family back to Scotland. Having been forced out of their country in the wake of religious persecution, she now had grown roots in her new land and leaving it, and her children, is devastating.

Meeting up with Isaac once more, as well as returning to Scotland, produces mixed feelings within Alex. She must face her guilt and work through the confrontations with her confused and unhappy son, as well as the long-ago losses and compounded homesickness when she sees how far they have grown from Hillview, Matthew’s ancestral home. Her husband begins to bond more closely with Luke, who appears to be trying to sort out their past, and Belfrage give us greater glimpses into Luke’s life as well as his changing perceptions of his world and the individuals who populate it. Her treatment of the younger Graham brother is especially skillfully woven because we are kept in a questioning state: “Exactly how hard do old habits die?” Just when we think things have changed, something else occurs, bringing our assumptions into question, though knowing answers could come from any direction.

The author deals with historical reality with the skillful dexterity she utilizes in the preceding seven books. Religious persecution—in the colonies as well as Scotland—battles and factual historical figures all play a role she does not whitewash, even to the detriment of Alex’s relationship with Matthew. Belfrage moves us between eras and places with a hand so adroit we not only fall into the story, but also follow along with baited breath, around every obstacle and with an eye out for anything that might come between our players and their goals.

Life being what it is in seventeenth-century Scotland, adversity and heartbreak are constant companions. Even here, what characters see and how they see it, wraps us into their destinies, makes us care about them all the more. At times they make the best of it, while on other occasions, not so much: “The night was bitterly cold, the stars strewn like shards of crushed glass on a velvet background.” But so often even the bitter language of their love rises within a bouquet of poetry, reminding us, and perhaps them, that life is too precious not to move forward.

While the story opens with Isaac and moves at one point for a long spell back to Maryland, it really is Alex and Matthew’s tale, with the degrees of separation surrounding them: they are the nucleus, and they move forward with heartbreak and laughter, sharing the story of their loves and their losses, accepting some realities, while left wondering about others. At their now-advanced ages, Matthew and Alex begin to wonder about future Grahams. “Was there anything left of them in the twenty-first century? Would there be someone living here, in their place, and would that person’s name be Graham?” Given the strange way they came together, how exactly would this work? Even this element of the story unites characters with readers, as Belfrage weaves time together in such a fashion that we recognize ourselves in those who came before, and how their choices affect the lives we live today.

Having completed this last of the eight novels of The Graham Saga, it is perhaps easy to overlook—this is how seamlessly Belfrage writes us all together—that the re-reading of the series sets us all upon a circular sort of journey, much like the one Alex possibly faces, when her seventeenth-century self passes on and time marches forward until her original era dawns, and she is born again. Will she re-live it all in the same way we will when we go back to the beginning?

To Catch a Falling Star ties together some loose ends, answers some questions as its creator draws the Grahams’ story to a close. Alex recalls her first night with Matthew on a Scottish moor, and Jacob, her young son, gone too soon. She caresses a carved wooden infant, much as she did the one Matthew had made for her on that moor, as she agonized over her feelings for the baby Isaac. As we—reader and Alex alike—recall the start of her journey, she and Matthew are passing into a new phase of life. “Colour was returning to their world, greys morphing back to greens and browns, reds and blues.” One can’t help but recall the colors Isaac sees just before his second passage, as one world spills into another, both then and now.

It is a difficult moment, for all the remembering, and new questions, about future as well as past, and knowing this is the end of the long journey once embarked upon with such pleasure, aware there was so much more ahead. Alex herself used to say she would make the same choice—to stay—if she were to do it all over again. For all the heartbreak, grief and terror, there is also immense joy, love and bonding of souls in these tales, these “desert island books,” as another author refers to them, and like Alex, we would do it all over again as well. And we will.  

Anna Belfrage has so generously offered a Kindle copy of To Catch a Falling Star for one lucky winner. For your chance to win, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here.  

*********

See Louise Rule's sister review for 
To Catch a Falling Star 

Anna Belfrage can be found on Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, on her website and at her fantabulous blog, where you can learn much more about the author, her projects, the Grahams and her own world.

Guest Post: Winner of Book of the Month Award, C.R. May

Winner of The Review's May 2015 Book of the Month Award
Sorrow Hill by C. R. May

You have a chance to win a FREE COPY of Sorrow Hill. Simply comment below OR at Rob's review, located here OR at the Facebook thread for the contest, located here. 

Drawing May 30, 2015

C.R. May discusses his current project...


One of the things which Rob touched on during our discussion concerned the amount of information which is woven into the narrative of the Beowulf poem itself. As you know, Sorrow Hill was my first attempt at writing, so in a way I was as surprised as most people seem to be when I realised that it was going to take me far more than a traditional trilogy to tell the tale in its entirety. I remember thinking to myself about midway through book two that my tale could easily fill at least half a dozen volumes as the twisted tale of inter tribal and familial warfare unfolded across the Scandinavian lands and beyond. 

In Wræcca I was introducing primarily Swedish characters who would come to play an important part in the future of Beowulf and the Geat nation as the decades rolled by. However, as I realised the enormity of the task ahead of me and gained confidence in my writing ability, I began to hanker after creating new tales with new characters to fill them. I decided to end the Beowulf story where most people would expect, with the death of Grendel's mother. But my writing heart remained in the northern lands, and as the Brennus story was nearing its conclusion I began to think about a subject for my next series. My novella, Dayraven, tells the story of a historically attested raid made by the Geats under King Hygelac around the year AD523, three years after the death of Grendel in Monsters. It incorporates many of the characters which were in the Sword of Woden books and I decided to continue the story from that point but change the lead character from Beowulf to another. This would enable me to 'cherry pick' the highlights from events in the Scandinavian lands, but move the main focus of the story across to Britannia. The Angle, Eofer was the perfect choice for this. 

Married to Hygelac's daughter, Astrid, he crops up regularly in the Sword of Woden books. Kin to the following two kings of the Geats, Heardred and Beowulf himself, he would be honour bound to lend his support in times of trouble, despite the fact that he would now be helping the Angles carve out their new kingdom on the other side of the North Sea. His king, Eomær, is widely regarded as the leader who led the English people from their first home in modern day Jutland to East Anglia in the mid 520's, so the stories would dovetail perfectly. It's a vast canvas which I hope will keep me busily writing for years. In the first book the seat of Anglian power still resides in Old Angeln, although they are coming under increasing pressure from their neighbours the Danes, now freed from the depredations of Grendel and the fell hag. The following extract is the opening scene of chapter one, following on from a prologue which sets the scene for a major thread in the storyline. 

Eofer is returning home from a summer spent raiding and fighting in Britannia and, immediately after the squall you will read about below, the tale picks up where the Dayraven novella left off. The series is called Eofer King's Bane and the first book will be titled Vikings after the following passage from another Anglo Saxon poem, "Widsith." Considered older than Beowulf, "Widsith" contains the first recorded use of the word Viking, and yes, King Ingeld of the Heaðobeardna and Heorot itself will all be present!

Hroþwulf ond Hroðgar heoldon lengest

sibbe ætsomne suhtorfædran,

siþþan hy forwræcon wicinga cynn

ond Ingeldes ord forbigdan,

forheowan æt Heorote Heaðobeardna þrym.

　

Hrothwulf and Hrothgar held the longest

peace together, uncle and nephew,

since they repulsed the viking kin

hewn at Heorot Heathobards army and Ingeld

to the spear-point made bow.

Widsith

　

ONE

The eorle scanned the horizon and chewed his lip. It didn't look good. It didn't look good at all.

Sæward wiped his hands on the seat of his trews and took a firmer grip on the steer board.

“Look at it move!”

Glancing across he shared his lord's misgivings.

“This is going to hurt.”

Away to the south, a boiling rampart of darkness was bearing down on the ships of the Englisc fleet, and the pair watched as the helmsmen instinctively hauled at their own big blades and fanned out. They would need all the sea room they could get, and soon. The squall was little more than a mile or so distant now, moving quickly, its leading edge pulsing as lightning bolts flickered at its heart.

The sea was already responding and the Fælcen began to saw as white caps showed alongside, creamy waves slapping against the strakes of the sleek longship as they shot by.

The men exchanged a look.

“Half way?”

Eofer risked a glance to the south and was horrified to discover that the storm front had already gobbled up half the distance to them. He shook his head, crying out against the force of the freshening wind as he began to make his way down the ship.

“A third. Any more and we will be lucky if we only lose the sail. If the mast goes...”

The crew had gathered amidships, and they wrenched their faces away from the wall of death as their eorle approached.

He would need the strongest, most experienced men at the oars if they were to ride this one out, and Eofer snapped out his orders. “Duguð, row. Lash your oars to the thole pin and keep us from broaching.”

He turned to the expectant faces of the younger warriors. “Youth, you bail.”

Rounding on two dark haired lads, he stabbed out a finger. “Crawa, Hræfen. Lower the spar half way down the mast and square it off. Reef the sail by two thirds, then I want you to stand by the sheets. Keep your eyes on the sail. If it looks like it is about to blow out forget pulling the pins, just use your knife to cut them.” He flashed them a smile of encouragement. “Better to go two sheets to the wind than swim home.”

The twins gave a nervous laugh and scampered off to their task as Eofer cast a look of longing at the twin wash strakes lying snugly on the cross trees amidships. Fixed along the gunwale, they were used to raise the freeboard in heavy seas but, casting a look beyond the sweep of the stern, Eofer could see that it was already too late to peg them into place. The storm was upon them.

The crew looked up as one as an outlier moved in to extinguish the light and warmth of the sun and a spray of raindrops, as large and heavy as peas, swept across to mottle the deck.

Eofer hurried back to the steering platform, ready to throw his weight alongside the helmsman. A last glance outboard and he gasped at the terrible beauty as the Englisc ships, islands of colour and life in a vista of purple and black, were swallowed by the monster. 

In the blink of an eye the Fælcen was engulfed in a maelstrom of water, noise and gloom. Wind and wave searched out the smallest chink in their defences and found one as the power of the first roller nudged the stern aside. It was only a fraction but it was enough, and the following wave smashed into the tall stern post like a shield strike, the ship recoiling from the blow and offering up a glimpse of her flank to the onrushing madness. As the Fælcen began to broach, Eofer threw himself bodily into Sæward and desperately added his weight to the push. Both men grimaced with effort and fear as they stared down at the shredded waves which threatened to engulf them. The steerboard gunwale was kissing the sea, they were a heartbeat from the end as she began to respond and drag herself back to an even keel.

Before the ship could right herself the next wave hit. Driving beneath the hull, the stern was thrust skyward as the bows were forced deep, but she was a well found ship and she lived up to her name, lithe, fearless; a hunter. Rising again from the swell, she shook the water from her timbers and forged ahead. As the great hooked beak of the prow crept around, Eofer scanned the deck and the breath caught in his throat as he saw that the boy, Hræfen, was missing from his place at the steer board side. As his eyes moved out to search the torn surface of the sea for any sign of the lad, the big arm of Imma Gold reached out from its place at the benches and casually plucked a dark mass from the waters, depositing it in the scuppers like a bundle of sodden rags. As the big warrior bent to his oar their eorle watched with pride as the bundle came back to life and the boy dragged himself back across to his station by the steer board sheet. Kissing the lashing which had saved his life, Hræfen resumed his watch on the tortured sail.

Up for'ard, Eofer saw that Spearhafoc had taken up a position in the bows. Balanced perfectly she was a woman of many talents, and he was proud of the qualities she had developed since she had joined his war band. Fearless, lithe and deadly with spear and sæx alike, the shield maiden, although no volur, regularly conversed with the gods. The tawny feathers of the hen Sparrowhawk corkscrewed from her hair as the gale snatched away her invocation to Ran. Bracing herself in the very upturn of the prow as the waves hurtled past only feet away, the young woman was holding aloft a sacrifice as she offered to fill the goddess' drowning net with something other than the crew of the Fælcen.

The gale set up an unearthly howl in the rigging, fire bolts danced at the masthead but, with the ship running steadily before the gale, Eofer knew that the worst moments were already past. Clinker built in good Englisc oak from the Wolds near his hall, the hull flexed and creaked as she was driven before the white caps like the pure-blood she was. Smaller than the dragon ships with barely a draft to speak of, the Fælcen, at twenty oars, was the type of warship which the Englisc called scegð, perfect for carrying a small, hard-hitting force of warriors deep inside the lands of their foemen.

He relaxed his grip on the steer board and let Sæward run her on. They shared a look, and each man knew just how close they had come to joining the legions of those lost at sea, spending an eternity in the hall of the sea god, Wade. Sæward leaned across and they shared a laugh as the helmsman cried above the noise.

“That was fun. Shall we do it again?"

About the Author:

C.R. May was born in Bow, East London before his family moved to South Ockendon, Essex. After hearing that Ockendon translated as Wocca's Hill in Saxon, a lifelong passion in history was kindled, which has taken him from Berlin to the site of the battle of Little Big Horn (via Erik the Red's Icelandic hall!). The influx of Germanic adventurers was recorded in the place names around him and, inspired one day, he decided to weave his own stories into this history. You can read and discover more information at his blog and the author may be found at Facebook.

Rob Bayliss is a reviewer at The Review and is currently writing his own fantasy series. Information on his writing projects can be found at Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow.

Rob Interviews Book of the Month Award Winner C.R. May

Winner of The Review's May 2015 Book of the Month Award

You have a chance to win a FREE COPY of Sorrow Hill. Simply comment at Rob's review, located here OR at the Facebook thread for the contest, located here. 

Drawing May 30, 2015

Being a West Countryman, my drink of choice is usually cider. However, today I’m having a chat with Cliff May, the talented author of Sorrow Hill, the first in his trilogy of Beowulf: Sword of Woden series. Therefore it only seems right and proper to tap a cask of mead and imbibe a horn or three. Is a horn the equivalent of a pint? Will mead really colour my teeth green, as happened to one of Beowulf‘s companions? Oh well, I don’t know the answers but it will be fun finding out, ah, here’s the man himself!

Waes Hael, Cliff, you’ll need this to wet your whistle (hands over a full horn of mead). Firstly congratulations on receiving The Review's Book of the Month award for Sorrow Hill. Could you tell me a little about yourself and how you became a writer?

Thanks, Rob, I was very pleased to be chosen, it was completely unexpected. I have been writing now since the end of 2012 and, as you know Sorrow Hill was my first-ever novel. In fact it was about the first thing longer than a shopping list that I had written for about forty years! The bomb sites of the blitz in east London were my playground as a child and later the family moved to south Essex. Nearby was the Battle of Britain Spitfire airfield at Hornchurch where I could explore the hangars and old revetments known as E pens where the aircraft sheltered from attack. I stumbled across an old paperback called Nine Lives by a New Zealander called Alan Deere who was based there during the battle, and I read and re-read the book until it fell apart. It was a thrill to be able to visit the scene of the action, and I think that a lifelong love of reading and history probably started there. Following 15 grim years working in the City, my then-wife was unhappy at home and wanted to return to work so I became the prototype house husband, taking over the care of our children who were then three and one years old. I combined the role with renovating two tatty old wrecks which we moved to during that time, a Victorian town house followed by a 14th century hall house. I taught myself some of the old medieval skills like timber frame carpentry and lime plastering. It was hard physical work repairing centuries of wear and neglect, removing and taking literally tons of concrete and rubble to the local tip in the family car, but the end results were immensely satisfying. I used to treat myself to a short break every year during this time, always with an eye on history. One year I visited Iceland and searched out the locations mentioned in the sagas, another I crewed on the full size replica of Captain Cook's ship, Endeavour, sleeping in hammocks and watching the sun rise over the North Sea while sweating in a sail aloft. Two further children followed a decade later, one of which we were assured was autistic. Caring for him and looking after a baby (and two teens) in the middle of extensive building work taught me the patience and self-discipline a writer needs. My son is fine now, but I still have a daughter at primary school and writing offered me a kind of 'virtual existence' outside the home, plus a welcome source of income, which would still enable me to care for the family full time. One evening I sat at the laptop and wrote 'The boy stood at the base of the tree...' and I haven't stopped since!

 
Ha! I understand that ‘virtual existence’ bit. Hmm, this mead is nice, I could get used to this. If I recall a previous conversation we had, you told me you galloped through the writing of Sorrow Hill and the sequel Wraecca. Are you a regimented author, do you set aside writing time in your day?

I am very fussy I am afraid. I need peace and solitude to write because I never really plan very much at all. I have a vague idea of the start and end of the book plus a few highlights, but even those few supposedly fixed points rarely survive the actual writing process. The story comes into my head as I write it, almost like the pictures which flash into your mind when you read a good description in a book, and I write what I see. If someone comes into the room and speaks to me I have no idea what they are saying for a while as I return to the world! I write mostly during the day alongside running the home and luckily, now that the youngest children are older, 13 and 11, I can write at the weekends and during the school holidays. Basically, now that I am a single parent, I write when I can.

I’m with you on that one. The more I write, the more the ideas flow… Talking of which, our horns are both empty; here, have a top up. Your love of the period and of Beowulf is obvious; but to wrest three novels from one poem is no mean feat. Have you always known you would write this series?

Originally I had the idea that I would write either a stand alone novel (sensible for a first timer) or a series (stupidly, I took this option) set in the drowned land beneath the present North Sea. Oil and gas companies have mapped the seabed and produced detailed maps of the area known to scientists as Doggerland after the Dogger Bank, then a hilly region on a grassy plain. The rivers Thames, Rhine, Seine etc. all flowed into one huge watercourse which flowed to the Atlantic via a great waterfall at a time when the chalk cliffs near Dover and Calais were still one continuous ridge; it's a fantastic setting. Our ancestors hunted great herds and fought off prides of lions there; it has great potential for a story, but I went with Beowulf in the end because most people think they know it. For quite a short tale there is an incredible amount hidden within the narrative: wars between the Geats, Swedes and Danes, family feuds, even a battle on the frozen surface of Lake Vanern. Add Hygelac's raid which I wrote about in my novella, Dayraven, and there is actually a mind-boggling amount that an author can wring from the bare bones which has come down to us.

Well I hope you write of Doggerland sometime soon, I’d like to see that waterfall in my mind’s eye.  But further to the last question: your descriptions of equipment, landscapes and even fighting style is very detailed; how much research did you do before beginning your story?

I have always loved the period which we used to call the Dark Ages. Western Europe became a sort of 'wild west' where anyone with the will to rise above the restrictions of their birth could, with luck, rise as high as the norns would allow them. Wealth in the form of land, gold and silver was there for the taking in the period between the fall of Rome and the emergence of the new centralised kingdoms and the Christian church in the 6^th and 7^th centuries, which combined together to hoover up all that wealth again. I have always read everything I could find about the period so I had a pretty deep background knowledge to begin with, but Paul Mortimer's book, Woden's Warriors is a cracker for equipment, weapons and tactics, plus he was kind enough to send me a file from a yet to be published book, so a special thanks to him. There are several sagas which complement the Beowulf poem, Ynglinga Saga and especially The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki are the best; the Penguin classics of the latter is a great read, in many ways almost a parallel of the Beowulf tale. Sam Newton's book on the origins of Beowulf helped to disentangle the many threads in the poem as did the verse translation edition of Seamus Heaney's recent book. For the descriptions of the locations I used Google Earth a lot. It's a fantastic resource for historical novelists; you can travel the same roads as your characters (sadly now lined by different coloured wheelie bins, even in rural Sweden) and describe a place as it actually is on the ground. 

This is thirsty work; I'll just have a drop more. How would you describe your character Beowulf?

The starting point for all my characters is my belief that people have always been essentially the same, with the same strengths and faults as today but surrounded by less technology. I wanted Beowulf to be a far more complex character than he was portrayed in the computer-generated (CGI) film, for example. Sorrow Hill covers the years of his childhood to late teens so I introduced some of the insecurities which we all feel during that time. He is desperate to please his father but Ecgtheow seems aloof. His infatuation with Kaija and his bumbling attempts at speaking to her. Later, in Wraecca, he suffers from what we would all recognise now as head trauma but he thinks that he is losing his mind, and of course he rescues one young girl from abuse and avenges the murder of another. I wanted him to have what we would call now a social conscience, rather than be the muscle-bound bore portrayed in the film. I think that it makes him a more rounded character, someone people would like and respect as a man as well as a hero.

Yes I agree, and in my opinion you have more than succeeded. I found the CGI film a grand spectacle but I didn’t find its portrayal of Beowulf inspiring. You have rooted the story of Sorrow Hill with an actual recorded battle. When you embarked on the series did you have a mind to write historical fiction or fantasy?

That's a great question, Rob. My original intention was to write as little fantasy as possible but as the writing progressed, I found that it took so much away from the tale that the essence of the story was lost. It was a bit like Lord of the Rings without Gandalf or Orcs. So Beowulf was attacked by conger eels during the swimming race with Breca instead of a sea monster and the nest of trolls which he boasts about killing before the fight with Grendel became remnants of the Neanderthal population surviving in the backwoods of Sweden, etc. Luckily I quickly realised my error. How could you explain the fact that Beowulf swam down through the mere to attack Grendel's mother for 'the best part of a day'? Although I kept most of the rationalizations like those mentioned above, I decided to increase Woden's involvement to help account for some of the more supernatural/superhuman episodes in the books. I think that the mix helped to isolate the fight with Grendel, in Monsters, and made the passage all the more powerful by being more than just another fantastic episode among a string of others.

　
What struck me was how you brought the religious belief system of your characters' culture alive. I found it believable. The figure of Woden - the All Father- and the echoes of him in our folk memory and culture has always fascinated me; has he you?

The more that you study the figure of Woden the more you realise what a complex character he has. Public perception is based on the later Norse figure of Odin, by which time he had become more of a god of war and the nobility. Before that, the more warlike qualities were largely the domain of Tiw/Tyr and Woden was far more shamanistic. His connection to poetry, healing, magic, runelore, and even ecstasy indicate that he was a far more fascinating character in earlier times. Of all the old gods, Woden represented the qualities of the human mind and emotions, good and not so good, as opposed to, say, the more practical concerns of crop fertility and weather of Yngvi-Frey and Thunor. Cunning, shifty and vindictive at times, but also willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others, it is this multi-faceted character which I think makes him so appealing to us still.

Well I’ll drink to that. Thank you for your time, Cliff; it’s been fascinating and an absolute pleasure. Just one last question… do my teeth look green to you?

*****

About the Author:

C.R. May was born in Bow, East London before his family moved to South Ockendon, Essex. After hearing that Ockendon translated as Wocca's Hill in Saxon, a lifelong passion in history was kindled, which has taken him from Berlin to the site of the battle of Little Big Horn (via Erik the Red's Icelandic hall!). The influx of Germanic adventurers was recorded in the place names around him and, inspired one day, he decided to weave his own stories into this history. You can read and discover more information at his blog and the author may be found at Facebook.

*****

Rob Bayliss is a reviewer at The Review and is currently writing his own fantasy series. Information on his writing projects can be found at Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow.

Rob Reviews Book of the Month: Sorrow Hill: Sword of Woden

The Review's May 2015 Book of the Month Award
Sorrow Hill - Sword of Woden Volume 1 by C.R. May
Review by Rob Bayliss

See below to learn how to claim your chance to win a 

FREE COPY of Sorrow Hill 
Drawing May 30, 2015

“Trolls!” Hrothgar cried with a laugh. “What are trolls going to do to me? Tear down the doors of Heorot and murder all my warriors?”

For longer than I care to remember I’ve been a fan of the legend of Beowulf from the epic poem. I enjoyed it even before I came to realise the cultural significance of it to my English sense of self. It gave me a love of the so-called “Dark Age” period of history and the realisation that history is contained in the very words that we use… and a love of fantasy of course, for Beowulf has perhaps one of the darkest and most fearsome monsters to ever be spawned from the human subconscious: Grendel, the Grinder!

We’ve had cinematic versions since of course: the computer-generated Beowulf, which is a feast for the eyes, yet personally I found it strangely disappointing, and the enjoyable 13^th Warrior which borrows heavily from the legend. But the poem places Beowulf in the real world. His people are the Geats, with Swedes and Danes as neighbours. Anglo Saxon the poem may be but the protagonist is placed in the Scandinavian world as this tale predates the formation of England. Looking back to some mythic golden age seems to be a human trait!

In Sorrow Hill C.R. May takes us back to this golden age and places us in a distinct timeline. It’s the early 6th century and the Geats find themselves in a turbulent world of change that will ultimately erase their kingdom from history.

The Western Roman Empire is on the brink of collapse; their province of Britannia has been lost and the Geats' cultural contemporaries, the Anglisc, are in the process of carving out New Anglia in those fertile, ice free lands. Beowulf himself is the son of an Earldorman and through his mother, a grandson of a king. He is being prepared to take his father’s place and join the noble warrior elite, but his wyrd- his fate - is to be different.

This is where the author skilfully walks a line between historical fiction and fantasy for while on a boyhood mission to capture eaglets for his father, Beowulf meets a wanderer and shares the man's fire as the night closes in. There is something different about this one-eyed travelling man called Hrarni, who seems to know all about Beowulf. The boy gives Hrarni an eaglet, much to the traveller’s delight. In return the one-eyed man gives the boy much sage advice and makes a gift of part of his staff, as a token of his favor.

We watch as Beowulf grows and develops from a child under the tutorage of his foster father, learning his craft as a warrior and a leader of men. His world is turned upside down when his family is torn apart in a scramble for power. In the ensuing chaos the old adversaries of the Geats, the Swedes, mount an attack. Only Beowulf is on hand to mount a defence and test both his wyrd and warrior craft.

C.R. May is certainly a skilled story teller. This is a page turner that is difficult to put down. It is a fast-moving action packed novel charting Beowulf’s journey through childhood and awkward adolescence. Crucially we see Beowulf, not as some mythic hero but as a real person, slightly insecure desperate to please his aloof father. The society in which he develops is described to perfection, as are the battle scenes. You’ll feel the tension and smell the fear as the shields smack together to form a wall and you clasp your spear, listening to your breath beneath your grimhelm. The author’s prose and power of description paints a wonderful picture of this “golden age” of the proto-English (for want of a better term), but I feel special praise should be made in that this book carries a profound spiritual element that brings the religion of the time to life, breaking down the barriers between historical fiction and fantasy and, most importantly, the reader's disbelief.

Swept away in this book, all too soon the reader turns the last page but fear not; Sorrow Hill is the first of a trilogy with Wraecca and Monsters following. There is more to learn of Beowulf, the Sword of Woden and it's not only men that walk the earth.

Awestruck and  terrified the Geat aetheling moved towards the dying flames and knelt in supplication.
"Forgive me, Lord. I would not have raised a weapon had I known it was you!"
The man motioned for Hygelac to join him and, throwing back his wolf skin hood regarded him with his one remaining eye.
"You have been entrusted with the care of one who is of interest to me," the one eyed man began. "I would like you to ensure that he grows to become the greatest warrior in the north. In return I can offer you reputation and riches." He paused and fixed the aetheling with his penetrating stare. "Do we have a deal?"
A smile played across Hygelac's features as he began to realise the opportunity which was presenting itself to him. A god needed his help and was willing to bargain. He decided to grasp the opportunity with both hands.
"I want to be king," he replied coldly.

Author C.R. May has so generously offered to gift a FREE COPY of Sorrow Hill to one lucky winner! To get your name in our drawing, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread located here.
Drawing May 30, 2015

About the Author

C.R. May was born in Bow, East London before his family moved to South Ockendon, Essex. After hearing that Ockendon translated as Wocca's Hill in Saxon, a lifelong passion in history was kindled, which has taken him from Berlin to the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn (via Erik the Red's Icelandic hall!). The influx of Germanic adventurers was recorded in the place names around him and, inspired one day, he decided to weave his own stories into this history. You can read and discover more information at his blog and the author may be found at Facebook.
                                                   

                                                              ***

Rob Bayliss is a reviewer at The Review and is currently writing his own fantasy series. Information on his writing projects can be found at Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow.

Rob Reveals His Choice for Book of the Month

The Review's Book of the Month for May goes to...

When I was asked to pick my Book of the Month I have to admit I was somewhat stumped. True I’ve read lots of brilliant books, many meeting the indie criteria, since I’ve been a contributor to The Review. I had a few books in mind but I wanted to feature something different, something not yet on our blog-page’s bookshelves. The following points are what I look for when choosing a Book of the Month:

To be well written and have an interesting style
Good characterisation
Good plot development
A good degree of research and authenticity
Emotional empathy - to feel involved in the book

Funnily enough it was while going through the preview process that I found what I was looking for. I read the sample and approved it, secretly hoping that I could review it myself (which I later did!). I instantly liked the author’s style and prose and looked at other titles he had written. And it was there that I saw a title and read the blurb and wondered if I had stumbled upon the book that I wanted. I quickly purchased it and put it on my Kindle. Well I’m happy to say that yes it was.

Let me first take you back 40 years to 1975. I was eight years old and at primary school. I used to read and collect Asterix books and absolutely loved them, although I was a little young to fully appreciate the witty puns of the English translation. I loved the art and the stories and it featured Romans and Gauls, so I always had an interest in the ancient. Then our school started a book club whereby you could order books to read. I remember buying a book on ghosts, a book of Maildun the Voyager and another that had a profound effect on me. That book was Dragon Slayer by none other than Rosemary Sutcliff, which still has pride of place on my bookshelf. I admit I was first drawn to the striking cover by Charles Keeping. But reading the book was like coming home because, you see,

it was the story of Beowulf. And so I learned about Geats, King Hrothgar, Heorot the Hart and of course Grendel.

I then learned that it was based upon an old poem, one of the few surviving pre-conquest tales of our forebears. I urge everyone to read some of the wonderful translations and have a go reading the original. You can see root words in the Old English, familiar yet strange, yet spoken aloud they stir your blood and touch your soul. Hear them and imagine being gathered in a hall, the winter wind howling outside, the fire casting monstrous shadows that writhe on the walls, while the skald tells his tale for his meal, each telling no doubt a little different to suit his audience. A tale of heroes, monsters and blood. Children cling to their parents while the adults smile reassuringly and yet look furtively at the door; was it strongly barred?

My reading later went on to avidly consume the books of Tolkien and other authors of fantasy, but that isn't surprising as the seam of Beowulf runs through it; Tolkien was of course a professor of Anglo-Saxon. And in Beowulf, with Grendel the troll, we have a template for future works of fantasy.

So it will therefore come as no surprise that my choice for Book of the Month would feature a certain Beowulf Ecgtheowson, the first of a trilogy in fact. 

Beowulf the poem was never meant to be read, it would have been performed by an animated story teller and this book reflects that vibrancy. The author's style effortlessly draws you in and we see the character of  Beowulf develop from childhood and through adolescence. We know where this tale will take us and yet we become privileged to see how he came to be a leader of men on his own right and join him on his journey. The world which he inhabits is skillfully brought to life, the peoples and landscapes eloquently described.

There is humour, treachery, honour, murder and war, yet these are heroic times and the old gods walk among their followers. And that is where this book takes the reader beyond what would be loosely described as historical fiction, for in this book, with Beowulf as your guide, you will actually meet Woden. But reader, I beseech you, have a care, the All Father's favour can easily be withdrawn; this you will understand.

It is my absolute pleasure to announce my Book of the Month is Sorrow Hill: Sword of Woden Volume I  by C.R. May.

Don’t wander too far from the hall: the-death-that-stalks-by-night lurks in the shadows and you wouldn't want to miss the review, would you?

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C.R. May was born in Bow, East London before his family moved to South Ockendon, Essex. After hearing that Ockendon translated as Wocca's Hill in Saxon, a lifelong passion in history was kindled, which has taken him from Berlin to the site of the battle of Little Big Horn (via Erik the Red's Icelandic hall!). The influx of Germanic adventurers was recorded in the place names around him and, inspired one day, he decided to weave his own stories into this history. You can read and discover more information at his blog and the author may be found at Facebook. 

*********

Rob Bayliss is a reviewer at The Review and is currently writing his own fantasy series. Information on his writing projects can be found at Flint & Steel, Fire & Shadow.

Stuart Reviews: April Book of the Month: The Hanging of Margaret Dickson

The Hanging of Margaret Dickson

by Alison J. Butler

Reviewed by Stuart S. Laing

I approached this story thinking I knew the rough background to the legend of Half Hangit Maggie, the poor woman who died on the gallows of Edinburgh's Grassmarket only to be found alive in her coffin a few hours later. Alison Butler has done a simply wonderful job of adding flesh, blood and bones to that famous story. Her writing breathes life into a fantastic array of characters who bring real colour and drama to the book, and it is easy to lose yourself in the rich reek of the harbour at Musselburgh as fishwives clean their catch amid the jumble of creels and nets, or the heady stink of Edinburgh where thousands live cheek by jowl in a city with little or no sanitation.

Narrow Wynd in Old Edinburgh
The woman with the basket on her back
is a fishwife as Maggie was.

I found myself being drawn deeper and deeper into the story by the skilful use of fact and fiction to create a satisfying whole. Butler's research and deep love of the story shines through and adds real depth to the book along with a plethora of details, which just adds to the overall picture. Wonder no more why women go out on hen nights before their weddings! Or why sailors don't wish to be between the Devil and the deep blue sea!

From Maggie's childhood, the loss of her mother, her wild, rebellious teenage years and her marriage, at the age of only 17, which brings more disappointment than pleasure for the headstrong Maggie, we follow her life through its ups and downs. It is her undoubted desire to enjoy the finer things in life which leads her into flirtations with prostitution but through it all she always finds herself going back to her husband. It is to Butler's credit that she still manages to have you rooting for Maggie despite her wilful and wild ways. It would be so easy to view her as a deeply unsympathetic character who thinks only of herself without consideration for her husband or children. And there are times as you read the book that you find yourself shaking your head at her behaviour wishing she could just be satisfied with her lot, but that is not Maggie's way. Yet through it all Alison Butler paints her protagonist so well that you still fall for her charms and faults that could so easily have made her a deeply unlikeable character.

When her husband is press-ganged into the Royal Navy, it is Maggie's turn to believe she has been abandoned. Her journey southward with the intention of looking for him in Newcastle will prove to be her undoing. The events which follow will give birth to both a sickly infant destined to a short life and the start of Maggie Dickson's place in Edinburgh's folklore and history.

Edinburgh Tolbooth by St Giles on the Royal Mile. It was here Maggie awaited execution.

Even though the book is moving towards the inevitable date with the gallows of the Grassmarket you find yourself hoping that somehow Maggie will mend her ways. Unfortunately, history cannot be changed and the descriptions of the Tolbooths in Kelso and Edinburgh will leave you scratching yourself at the image of bodies crawling with filth and lice and chained in unlit, stinking cells.

Eighteenth-century Scotland lives and breathes through the pages of this book. From the stink of the midden to the tantalising aroma of French perfume this a book which fills your senses, and like a rich broth leaves you satisfied.

Bravo to Alison Butler for a job well done.

*********

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.

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Alison J. Butler has very kindly agreed to gift a kindle copy of   The Hanging of Margaret Dickson to one lucky winner. To be entered into the draw just leave a comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located 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.