Category Archives: Historical Fiction

THE WHITE CAMELLIA ~ by Juliet Greenwood #guestpost #giveaway

Juliet Greenwood

The White Camellia

by

Juliet Greenwood

 

Juliet Greenwood

Genre: Historical Fiction

Release Date: 15th September 2016

Publisher: Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press

1909. Cornwall. Her family ruined, Bea is forced to leave Tressillion House, and self-made business woman Sybil moves in. Owning Tressillion is Sybil’s triumph — but now what? As the house casts its spell over her, as she starts to make friends in the village despite herself, will Sybil be able to build a new life here, or will hatred always rule her heart?

Bea finds herself in London, responsible for her mother and sister’s security. Her only hope
is to marry Jonathon, the new heir. Desperate for options, she stumbles into the White Camellia tearoom, a gathering place for the growing suffrage movement. For Bea it’s life-changing, can she pursue her ambition if it will heap further scandal on the family? Will she risk arrest or worse?

When those very dangers send Bea and her White Camellia friends back to Cornwall, the two women must finally confront each other and Tresillion’s long buried secrets.

EXTRACT

Cornwall, 1909

It had not changed.

Sybil stepped to the very edge of the cliff and gazed down at the rambling old house below her, topped with a maze of chimneys, a crumbling reminder of its Jacobean finery.

There was no finery left in Tressillion House, she thought grimly. Even from this distance, the place held an air of ruin and abandonment. No smoke rose up through the chill morning from warm fires within. No bustle of servants, no carriage waiting to take the ladies on their rounds of visits and charitable works in the neighbouring village of Porth Levant. Not even Hector, the stallion, steaming in the frosted morning, taking the master of the house on an inspection of the mine, just visible on the next headland.

This was what she had set in motion, all those years ago. The perfect revenge.

Sybil shivered. She unwound the scarf from her head and breathed in deeply the salt blowing in from the sea, her eyes following the North Cornish coast as it vanished into the distance in the crash of spray against rocks.

The wind tugged at her, loosening her curls from the silver clasp at the base of her neck, sending tendrils of brown hair in a wild dance around her face. Sybil turned back to the house below. She had dreamed of this for so long. The moment she would have Tressillion House helpless at her feet. When the Tressillions − who had once had more than they could ever need, but had not thought twice about taking the last hope from people with nothing − would be destroyed, the survivors learning what it was like to be totally dependent on others.

Was this how revenge felt? Sybil hugged herself, pulling the folds of her coat around her, bent almost double by the grief coiling deep in her belly.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

Sybil straightened, banishing any emotion from her face. ‘Indeed.’ She turned to meet the square, squat little man emerging from the smart new Ford automobile, one hand struggling to keep his hat on his head.

‘The best view of Tressillion House,’ he remarked. ‘You can see, Miss Ravensdale, just what an exceptional property this is. There’s none finer this side of Truro.’

‘So I see, Mr Roach,’ she replied, almost managing to banish any hint of irony. On their first meeting, the solicitor had made obvious his contempt at a spinster, not in the first flush of youth, daring to invade his offices in broad daylight for all the respectable citizens of St Ives to see. He had changed his tune a little too quickly at the sight of her gleaming new Chevrolet, shipped all the way from New York, and speaking more of true wealth than any flash of diamonds.

Tressillion House had proved a more than usually difficult properly to dispose of, and there were impatient creditors snapping at Mr Roach’s heels. She must have seemed like a miracle, a rich hotelier from America dreaming of owning a property in Cornwall. Who else, the gleam in Roach’s eyes declared, would be fool enough to live in an isolated mansion fallen on hard times, with the rollers of the North Cornwall coast clawing at the rocks on wild nights, and ghosts creaking amongst its rafters?

Sybil replaced the scarf around her head. ‘Shall we go?’

BUY LINKS

http://www.honno.co.uk/dangos.php?ISBN=9781909983502

https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Camellia-Juliet-Greenwood/dp/1909983500/

https://www.amazon.com/White-Camellia-Juliet-Greenwood/dp/1909983500

https://wordery.com/the-white-camellia-juliet-greenwood-9781909983502

The lure of big old houses

I love big old houses. Or rather, big old houses with gardens. I suppose I never did quite recover from reading ‘The Secret Garden’ at an early age. I love visiting them, and I love writing about them. Like Kate Morton, it’s my trademark. My stories are very different to Kate Morton, and differ from each other, but however hard I try to escape, that big old house, crumbling at the edges, and the overgrown garden, ready to be brought back to life, are there.

I don’t live in a large old house, but I do live in a little quarryman’s cottage, halfway up a Welsh mountain, that was built during the 1840s. The lives of the generations who lived here were mostly ones of poverty and hard work, and some held downright tragedy. But I never feel uneasy here. The garden still has the remains of previous planting, the standpipe and the loo at the bottom of the garden, and the vegetable garden that allowed the earlier inhabitants to subsist. I enjoy living amongst the remains of lives once lived, and a garden that has clearly been loved over many years, and whose structure I’ve kept in my own version of garden love – polytunnel with a grapevine and all.

I suppose that is the fascination with going round old houses, like Glynllifon in North Wales, and Lanhydrock in Cornwall, and restored villages like Blists Hill in Ironbridge and the Black Country Living Museum. It’s fascinating looking at the surroundings where the rich and the poor lived, trying to imagine their lives, and the stories that surround them.

It’s also, not surprisingly, where ‘The White Camellia’ begins, with self-made businesswoman Sybil returning from America in 1909 to take over a large old house on the Cornish coast, still with the remains of the previous inhabitants strewn amongst its rooms and gardens. But this is a woman who will be haunted by the past, and the family, and house, she has helped to destroy. A woman with secrets, too proud to ask for forgiveness, but with a need to find her own peace with herself.

Although I didn’t realise when I was writing the book, ‘The White Camellia’ is drawn from every great old house, and restored village I have ever visited, and the intertwined lives that surround us, everywhere. I shall have to find new old houses and gardens to visit…

ABOUT JULIET GREENWOOD

Juliet Greenwood

Juliet Greenwood is the author of two previous historical novels for Honno Press, both of which reached #4 and #5 in the UK Amazon Kindle store. ‘Eden’s Garden’ was a finalist for ‘The People’s Book Prize’. ‘We That are Left’ was completed with a Literature Wales Writers’ Bursary, and was Welsh Book of the month for Waterstones Wales, The Welsh Books Council and the National Museum of Wales. It was also chosen by the ‘Country Wives’ website as one of their top ten ‘riveting reads’ of 2014, was one of the top ten reads of the year for the ‘Word by Word’ blog, and a Netmums top summer read for 2014.

Juliet’s grandmother worked as a cook in a big country house, leaving Juliet with a passion for history, and in particular for the experiences of women, which are often overlooked or forgotten. Juliet trained as a photographer when working in London, before returning to live in a traditional cottage in Snowdonia. She loves gardening and walking, and trying out old recipes her grandmother might have used, along with exploring the upstairs and downstairs of old country houses.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliet.greenwood

Twitter: https://twitter.com/julietgreenwood

Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/844510.Juliet_Greenwood

Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/105731636741241490753/posts

Blog: https://suffrageladiestearoom.com/

Website: http://www.julietgreenwood.co.uk/

GIVEAWAY

1st Prize – paperback copies of all 3 of Juliet’s books
2nd Prize – an ecopy of The White Camellia

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THE LOST GIRL by Liz Harris

Liz Harris

The Lost Girl

by

Liz Harris

 

Liz Harris

What if you were trapped between two cultures?

Life is tough in 1870s Wyoming. But it’s tougher still when you’re a girl who looks Chinese but speaks like an American.

Orphaned as a baby and taken in by an American family, Charity Walker knows this only too well.  The mounting tensions between the new Chinese immigrants and the locals in the mining town of Carter see her shunned by both communities.

When Charity’s one friend, Joe, leaves town, she finds herself isolated. However, in his absence, a new friendship with the only other Chinese girl in Carter makes her feel like she finally belongs somewhere.

But, for a lost girl like Charity, finding a place to call home was never going to be that easy …

Genre: Historical Romantic Fiction

Heart of the West: Book 3

Release Date: 8th August 2016

Publisher:   Choc Lit

BUY LINKS

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

 ABOUT LIZ HARRIS

Liz Harris

Liz Harris lives south of Oxford. Her debut novel was THE ROAD BACK (US Coffee Time & Romance Book of 2012), followed by A BARGAIN STRUCK (shortlisted for the RoNA Historical 2013), EVIE UNDERCOVER, THE ART OF DECEPTION and A WESTERN HEART. All of her novels, which are published by Choc Lit, have been shortlisted in their categories in the Festival of Romantic Fiction. In addition, Liz has had several short stories published in anthologies. Her interests are theatre, travelling, reading, cinema and cryptic crosswords.

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

WEBSITE

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1 COPY OF THE BOOK (ebook)
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Isabella of Angoulême by Erica Lainé #excerpt #giveaway

Isabella

 

Isabella of Angoulême

by

Erica Lainé

 

Isabella

Genre: Historical Fiction

Release Date: October 2015

Publisher:  SilverWood Books

Set in the thirteenth century, the kingdoms of England and France are struggling over territory as the powerful Angevins threaten the French king. In regions far from Paris local fiefdoms disregard all authority.

The Tangled Queen is the story of the little known and very young Isabella of Angoulême who was abducted by King John in 1200. She became his second wife and queen consort, aged 12. He was the most reviled king in English history and his lust for her led to the loss of Normandy and the destruction of the Plantagenet Empire, which then brought about the Magna Carta.

Isabella came of age in England, but was denied her place in court. Her story is full of thwarted ambition, passion, pride and cruelty. She longed for power of her own and returned to France after the death of John to live a life of treachery and intrigue…

 

EXCERPT

Excerpt from Isabella of Angoulême: The Tangled Queen Part 1.

Isabella smiled and yawned – it was time these chattering girls left. She dismissed them, haughty and impatient. Away they sped, some calling back to Isabella, jokes and remarks full of innuendo for her future. She frowned; this was not the way to treat a future queen.

‘Agnes, help prepare me for bed.’

Agnes closed the chamber door, unlacing the back of Isabella’s dress, folding the glorious red and gold silk into the large chest. Tomorrow Isabella would wear the blue gown, the splendid blue and silver fabric showing wealth and also loyalty. If red and gold had shown the power and wealth of the Taillefers, then the blue would mark their obedience and fealty.

Early the next morning Agnes was busy preparing a scented bath. Precious rose oil, drop by drop, turned the hot water cloudy. And then she was busy mixing the rosemary wash for Isabella’s hair. She would wear her hair loose today, and her small gold guirland.

Isabella woke up and saw Agnes looking at her, long and thoughtful, ready to make her stir, but she was already throwing back the covers and standing and stretching. Agnes nodded and together they moved to the bath, and Isabella slipped into the milky, perfumed water and rubbed the rosemary wash into her hair. She felt the water running down her back and shivered. Then she was being briskly dried by Agnes, who was determined to treat Isabella to the most thorough of preparations.

Her mother Alice entered the room and the three of them unfolded the wedding gown and dressed Isabella. Her chemise was soft and light, the dress heavy and cumbersome. Arranged within it, held within it as if caged, her face pale but proud, she moved to the window and looked down onto a courtyard full of people, horses, carts and wagons. A procession was moving through the crowd, with a stately canon and an even more stately bishop in the centre. The clergy were intent on their walk to the cathedral. Isabella clutched Agnes in a sudden fear. Then she rested her head on the window and took a deep breath. It was her wedding day.

 

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

About Erica Lainé

Isabella

I was was born in 1943 in Southampton and originally studied for the theatre.  I moved with my family to Hong Kong in 1977 and worked and lived there for 20 years, writing English language textbooks for Chinese primary schools and managing large educational projects for the British Council.

Since living in S W France I have been very involved with a local history society and have researched many topics, the history of gardens and fashion being favourites.

Isabella of Angoulême began in 2011 at a writing workshop run by Philippa Pride, the Book Doctor.  The story of this young queen was fascinating and although she appears as a character in some other historical novels I wanted to concentrate on her entire life and her importance to the English and the French and the role she played in the politics of power. Part Two is being written now and my head is more or less permanently in the thirteenth century.

 

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/erica.laine.31

https://www.facebook.com/Isabella-of-Angouleme-the-story-716324821830441/

 

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LaineEleslaine

GIVEAWAY

2 ECOPIES OF THE BOOK

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Twelfth Night by Luccia Gray ~ BOOK PROMO

Eyre Hall

Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall

By

LUCCIA GRAY

 

twelfth night

Following Edward Rochester’s death in All Hallows at Eyre Hall, Jane Eyre, who has been blackmailed into marrying a man she despises, will have to cope with the return of the man she loved and lost. The secrets she has tried so hard to conceal must be disclosed, giving rise to unexpected events and more shocking revelations.

Romance, mystery, and excitement will unfold exploring the evolution of the original characters, and bringing to life new and intriguing ones, spinning a unique and absorbing narrative, which will move the action from the Yorkshire countryside, to Victorian London, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Colonial Jamaica.

Buy Links

AMAZON US

AMAZON UK

About Luccia Gray

Eyre Hall

Luccia Gray was born in London and now lives in the south of Spain with her husband. She has three children and three grandchildren. When she’s not reading or writing, she teaches English at an Adult Education Centre and at the Spanish National University.

 Author links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucciaGray/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucciaGray

Website: www.lucciagray.com

Google+ https://plus.google.com/+LucciaGrayAuthor

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/LucciaGray/

Blog Rereading Jane Eyre https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8186541.Luccia_Gray

Giveaway

2 paperback copies of the book
(Open internationally)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

twelfth night

The Lost Girl by Liz Harris ~ BOOK PROMO

lost girl

THE LOST GIRL

BY LIZ HARRIS

 

lost girl

Genre: Historical Romantic Fiction

Release Date: 16th October, 2015

Publisher: Choc Lit

What if you were trapped between two cultures?

Life is tough in 1870s Wyoming. But it’s tougher still when you’re a girl who looks Chinese but speaks like an American.

Orphaned as a baby and taken in by an American family, Charity Walker knows this only too well. The mounting tensions between the new Chinese immigrants and the locals in the mining town of Carter see her shunned by both communities.

When Charity’s one friend, Joe, leaves town, she finds herself isolated. However, in his absence, a new friendship with the only other Chinese girl in Carter makes her feel like she finally belongs somewhere.

But, for a lost girl like Charity, finding a place to call home was never going to be that easy …

BUY LINKS

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

ABOUT LIZ HARRIS

 

lost girl

Liz Harris lives south of Oxford. Her debut novel was THE ROAD BACK (US Coffee Time & Romance Book of 2012), followed by A BARGAIN STRUCK (shortlisted for the RoNA Historical 2013), EVIE UNDERCOVER, THE ART OF DECEPTION and A WESTERN HEART. All of her novels, which are published by Choc Lit, have been shortlisted in their categories in the Festival of Romantic Fiction. In addition, Liz has had several short stories published in anthologies. Her interests are theatre, travelling, reading, cinema and cryptic crosswords.

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

WEBSITE

GOODREADS

GIVEAWAY

1 COPY OF THE BOOK (ebook)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS by Judith Barrow + Guest Post

Judith Barrow

LIVING IN THE SHADOWS

by

JUDITH BARROW

 

Judith Barrow

Genre: Historical Fiction

Release Date: 16 July 2015

Publisher: Honno Welsh Women’s Press

It’s 1969 and Mary Schormann is living quietly in Wales with her ex-POW husband, Peter, and her teenage twins, Richard and Victoria.

Her niece, Linda Booth, is a nurse – following in Mary’s footsteps – and works in the maternity ward of her local hospital in Lancashire.

At the end of a long night shift, a bullying new father visits the maternity ward and brings back Linda’s darkest nightmares, her terror of being locked in. Who is this man, and why does he scare her so?

There are secrets dating back to the war that still haunt the family, and finding out what lies at their root might be the only way Linda can escape their murderous consequences.

Sequel to the acclaimed Changing Patterns and Pattern of Shadows:

Judith Barrow has not written an ordinary romance but a book that deals with important issues which are still relevant today… an excellent debut novel.
Historical Novels Review

Judith Barrow has written, with great intensity of emotions, an absorbing saga…
www.gwales.com

well-paced, gritty love story
Western Mail

An unforgettable debut novel – perfectly paced
Menna Elfyn

Barrow’s thoughtful and atmospheric novel shines a light on the shadowy corners of family life…
Lancashire Evening Post

a gripping read.
Tivyside Advertiser

BUY LINKS

AMAZON UK

Honno

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Writing Journey

The first story I can remember writing was of a teapot that fell off the table, broke its spout and died. I was eight years old. My mother said all my stories ended like that; comedic death, doom and disaster. I think my writing’s changed by now. At least I hope so!

I was born and brought up in a small village that was part of a group of villages called Saddleworth, on the edge of the Pennines. My father ruled the house. We were quite isolated and I spent much of my time reading and writing short stories and poems.

From an early age I wrote in secret. I had articles, the odd short story published in small presses and magazines. I wrote two books and grew resigned to those A4 self-addressed envelopes plopping through the letterbox with the rejection letters inside.

Then, on one of the visits to my mother in the North of England, I went to the Oldham Local History and Archive Centre to research for a third book I’d started.

And that’s when I found out about Glen Mill (the inspiration for the first of the trilogy, Pattern of Shadows. Reading about the history of it as a German POW camp in Oldham brought back a personal memory of my childhood

My mother was a winder (working on a machine that transferred the cotton off large cones onto small reels (bobbins), in order for the weavers to use to make the cloth). Well before the days of Health and Safety I would often go to wait for her to finish work on my way home from school. I remember the muffled boom of noise as I walked across the yard and the sudden clatter of so many different machines as I stepped through a small door cut into a great wooden door. I remember the rumble of the wheels as I watched men pushing great skips filled with cones alongside the winding frames, or manoeuvring trolleys carrying rolls of material. I remember the women singing and shouting above the noise, whistling for more bobbins: the colours of the cotton and cloth – so bright and intricate. But above all I remember the smell: of oil, grease – and in the storage area – the lovely smell of the new material stored in bales and the feel of the cloth against my legs when I sat on them, reading until the siren hooted, announcing the end of the shift.

When I thought about Glen Mill I wondered what kind of signal would have been used to separate parts of the day for all those men imprisoned there. I realised how different their days must have been from my memories of a mill. There would be no machinery as such, only vehicles coming and going; the sounds would be of men, only men, with a language and dialect so different from the mixture of voices I remembered. I imagined the subdued anger and resignation. The whole situation would be so different, no riot of colour, just an overall drabness. And I realised how different the smells would be – no tang of oil, grease, cotton fibres; all gone – replaced by the reek of ‘living’ smells.

The more I read about Glen Mill the more I thought about the total bleakness of it and the lives of the men there. And I knew I wanted to write about that. But I also wanted there to be hope somewhere. I wanted to imagine that something good could have come out of the situation the men were in.

And so Pattern of Shadows was written.

Things went a bit awry after that. I trawled through a list of possible agents and sent the manuscript off to a couple. At the same time I remembered an independent publisher, Honno, who’d previously published some short stories of mine and whose authors always looked to be on the same wavelength as me. So I sent a synopsis and a few chapters to them.

One agent was interested in my novel and invited me to meet her in London. She assured me that she had many contacts in the publishing world that would ‘snap her hand off for my novel. I wasn’t sure about her; I had the feeling we wouldn’t get on. But could I afford to miss the chance of having an agent? Would it give my work more credence?

I signed on the dotted line.

What a mistake!

The agent decided to negotiate a deal with a commercial editor. Having little experience about these matters, I thought it was the norm. Yes, I was that gullible. I paid up.

The manuscript came back. I read it in disbelief; if I followed all the ‘suggestions’ it would change from being a saga into romantic fiction. I like a bit of romance but it wasn’t what I’d written. The agent persuaded me to go with it.

I tried–with less and less interest. In the end I stopped. I didn’t recognise my story; I had no empathy with the characters. It wasn’t my book any more.

So I made a decision; I terminated the contract with the agent. Despite persuasive tactics from her I didn’t waiver. I’d lost faith in her.

In trepidation I emailed the editor at Honno. Luckily we parted on good terms; I’d thanked her for all her past help and encouragement. I explained what had happened and asked if she would reconsider my manuscript.

She would but no promises of acceptance.

After a week or two I had an offer of a contract. I accepted. And I’ve never looked back. Pattern of Shadows, published in 2010, was followed by the sequel, Changing Patterns and the last of the trilogy, Living in the Shadows, was published in July 2015.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

ABOUT JUDITH BARROW

 

Judith Barrow
Judith Barrow has lived in Pembrokeshire for thirty years. She is the author of three novels, and has published poetry and short fiction, winning several poetry competitions, as well as writing three children’s books and a play performed at the Dylan Thomas Centre. Judith grew up in the Pennines, has degrees in literature and creative writing and makes regular appearances at literary festivals.

https://twitter.com/barrow_judith

 https://www.judithbarrow.co.uk/

 www.honno.co.uk

GIVEAWAY

3 copies of the book (open internationally)

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