08 Friday Apr 2022
Posted in Scribbling
Because I’m busy tweaking things, and filling gaps, and this sort of things in TW2*, yesterday I up and asked my mother’s physiotherapist what the best entry point would be for a stab wound in the back.
“I want it to quickly give the victim breathing trouble,” I explained – and, having spent half the morning poring over medical journals, even spouted that I probably wanted a bad case of tension pneumothorax… Continue reading
03 Thursday Feb 2022
Tags
British History Online, Calendar of State Papers Scotland, historical novel, primary sources, swashbuckling
After finishing Draft 0 last Monday, I’ve spent this past couple of days up to my chin in primary sources, thanks to the wonder that is British History Online. Continue reading
15 Thursday Jul 2021
Posted in Scribbling, Stories, Theatre
We all read The Three Musketeers as children, don’t we? And we play make-believe, and watch the movies (and the fact itself that they keep making more of them must mean something), and go on to read Twenty Years Later, and perhaps The Man in the Iron Mask – but this is already where “we” split into two camps, roughly speaking: those who leave behind Dumas as yet another childhood pleasure, and those who do not. Continue reading
11 Thursday Feb 2021
Posted in History, Scribbling
A few months ago, as I was working on Road to Murder, I found trouble in the form of a French town called Montreuil sur Mer.* Well, for various reasons, my sleuth Tom Walsingham finds himself spending a night there, much against his inclination, and I needed to have a good idea of the place for that… Continue reading
20 Thursday Feb 2020
Posted in Books
I remember picking up Matthew Plampin’s Will and Tom in the bookshop at the Tate Britain – and then putting it back, just as I’d put back half a dozen other hardbacks in the last day. In truth, after lugging many and many and many pounds of books across Europe over the years, I’ve learned, when I’m travelling, to only buy the ones that can’t conceivably be procured through the Net – either digitally or physically. So I jotted down the title in my notebook’s dedicated page, and in time the novel found its way to my Kindle. Then, for some reason, it took me a few years to get round to actually read it. If you have a To Read List of any length, you know how these things happen… Continue reading
30 Saturday Sep 2017
Posted in History, Scribbling
I think I’ve told you already how Writer Unboxed is one of my favourite writerly sites. That’s mostly because it provides a wonderful mix of thought-provoking discussion and practical stuff, musings and resources, theory and exercises… All of it interesting and useful. Continue reading
13 Thursday Jul 2017
Posted in Books
Tags
Great Siege of Malta, historical novel, Mattias Tannhauser, Omnicompetent Hero, Pet peeves, The Religion, Tim Willocks
On the plane to Malta, I began reading Tim Willocks’ The Religion, one of a few Siege-themed novels I’d purchased in view of the journey. I rather liked the prologue, and my first glimpse of Grand Master La Valette and Sir Oliver Starkey, and the preparations for the siege.
If I was tempted to raise an eyebrow at La Valette’s life-or-death insistence that they must have Tannhauser at all costs… well, he is the hero, after all, and he’s been a Janissary for part of his life – so he must be in the thick of things, and there is some sort of reason for it, right? Continue reading
20 Thursday Apr 2017
Posted in Books
I’d never read anything by William Palmer – unti I got to review his novel The Devil Is White for the Historical Novel Review, some time ago.
And it was a surprise.
The story begins in 1792 England, with a bunch of entusiasts bent on founding their own colonial utopia on an island off the Western coast of Africa – a free, slaveless and democratic utopia, based on hard work, merit and honest interaction with the coastal tribes.
True, the coastal tribes happily thrive on the slave trade – but only for lack of proper morals, a state of things the settlers’ good example and conversion to Christianism are bound to change… Continue reading
09 Thursday Mar 2017
Posted in Books
I remember reading once that George Eliot wanted everything in Daniel Deronda “to be connected to everything else”.
Well, this is exactly what Titian’s Boatman feels like.
It may not look like it at first, when the reader is introduced to several characters in various places and various times. There is the eponymous boatman, plying his trade in a plague-ridden Venice in 1576, ferrying back and forth Titian’s last surviving son and plucky courtesan Tullia Buffo. Then, in present day London, there are actor Terry Jardine and Italian director Ludovico Zabarella, brought together by Shakespeare and personal loss. Lastly, there’s Cuban maid Aurora, carrying the weight of childhood trauma and widowhood – and finding consolation in a painting… Continue reading
09 Thursday Feb 2017
Posted in History, Scribbling, Stories
I’m dithering…
Yes – it’s the novel. Again. But the fact is, you see, that there is this rather grim thing happening in June 1594 – historically happening, I mean. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, because while not directly involving my hero, it has two sets of ties to his circumstances – one practical (and historically documented), and one, shall we say, psychological… Continue reading
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