Me and my books....
A Bit About Me
MY STORY
I have always worked in IT and until October 2019 I was a full-time project manager. Now that I am retired I can focus on the thing I love most - writing. At the age of 40 I did a part-time BA degree in Literature at Warwick, which progressed to an MA and then a PhD, my thesis being "Glimpses of Utopia & Dystopia in Victorian Fairylands". As a result of giving a paper on fairy tales I was approached by a publisher who suggested I gather together some lesser known fairy tales and as a result "Enchanted Ideologies: A Collection of Rediscovered Nineteenth-Century English Moral Fairy Tales" was published by The True Bill Press in 2010. I don't think the book is still available as the publisher went out of business.
During my research I “discovered” Mary De Morgan, a Victorian writer of fairy tales, amongst many other things. I became somewhat obsessed with De Morgan and as I wanted to share my research I wrote "Out of the Shadows: The Life and Works of Mary De Morgan", which was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2012. Despite my intensive research there were still many gaps in my knowledge - (why didn't she marry, why did she go to Egypt, how did she become a directress of a girls' reformatory) - and because I couldn't let De Morgan, or the act of writing, go I decided to write a fictional novel based on De Morgan’s life - the result being "The Jewel Garden". It is told from the perspective of a fictional character and tells of her fictional relationship with Mary De Morgan. This novel is a labour of love and I am thrilled that William & Whiting published it in February 2018.
I then wrote my second novel, "Song of the Nightingale". It is a historical novel, set in 18th century Italy that tells of two young boys who are bought from their families, castrated and then trained to be singers. This was something that was actually done at the time, though this story is purely fictional. It is told from the point of view of Philippe, who is the count's secretary and is tasked with taking the boys to Florence and settling them into the conservatoire, which is run by Jesuits. It tells of the boys' journey, of course, but it also tells of love, murderous revenge, deceit and reconciliation. The book was published by The Conrad Press in 2019.
I was very lucky in May 2020 to be taken on by literary agent Camilla Shestopal from the Shesto Literary Agency for "A Teller of Tales", book one of a proposed historical trilogy. She tried to find a publisher for two years but had no success. Eventually she told me to try and find a publisher myself and Williams & Whiting, who published "The Jewel Garden" were very happy to publish it, along with the other two books of the trilogy. So, "A Teller of Tales" was published May 2022, "A Keeper of Tales" was published November 2022 and "A Seeker of Tales" was published in November 2023. It was meant to be a trilogy but I want to know what happens next, so I am in the process of writing 'A Bearer of Tales', which should be available second half of 2024. The books tell of five generations of women and their attempts to tell their “her-stories” to a world deaf to the female voice. I am interested in the re-telling of stories, especially the fairy tale, through the centuries, and I have woven some of my own throughout the books as a link between the women.
When Camilla told me I should look for a publisher myself for my trilogy (now a tertalogy - she still loved the book, by the way!) she suggested I write a stand-alone book set in the 20th century with perhaps a bit of mystery - this apparently is what publishers want. So I stopped writing book 3 and wrote "Under the Eye". It's set in Egypt in 1936 at a time when Egyptians were demonstrating about the presence of the British in their country, despite having given them their independence in 1922. I'm very excited about it. As of December 2023 Camilla couldn't find a publisher so I took it back and Williams and Whiting were very happy to publish it for me and today, 24th February 2024, it is now available.
Under the Eye
February 2024
Cairo, 1936. Effie, a ten-year-old orphan from London, turns up in a packing case at the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. All her life she has dreamed that her mother is an Egyptian princess, but she is faced with cruelty and crushing disappointment before she finds what she is looking for.
Beattie Trevethan is the daughter of the advisor to the Minister of the Interior and, along with her close friend and archaeologist Marcus Dunwoody, she takes Effie under her wing. Beattie is singled out by the 'Eye of Horus' gang, who are intent on driving the British out of Egypt by any means necessary.
The lives of Effie, Beattie and Marcus are changed forever in a country beset by civil unrest.
A Seeker of Tales
September 2023
Tale tāl, n. An act of telling: a narrative, story: a false story: a mere story: (in pl.) things told idly or to get others into trouble: reckoning (arch,). (Chambers English Dictionary)
1888 - Florence, Italy. A year after rejecting the baby born after she had been raped, Harriest Marston, discovers that the child hadn't died after all. Vee, fearing that she will lose Harriet's love, promises to help get back the child from her adoptive parents.
1909 - London, England. Imogen Jones, adopted at birth, loses the prospect of a teaching job having been imprisoned in Holloway Prison for public disorder at a Suffragette's demonstration. Whilst looking for a book in her late father's study she comes across a hidden leather pouch containing letters and some type-written fairy tales. Imogen goes in search of the writer of the fairy tales, convinced that she is her natural mother.
Tales told in order to protect the present lead to the past being rewritten and the future threatened.
Book 3 in the Grandmothers' Footsteps series.
A Keeper of Tales
NOVEMBER 2022
Tale tāl, n. An act of telling: a narrative, story: a false story: a mere story: (in pl.) things told idly or to get others into trouble: reckoning (arch,). (Chambers English Dictionary)
1885. Harriet Marston is one of the very few women up at Oxford University. She is frustrated, however, by the constraints imposed on the female students. They must be chaperoned everywhere they go. They must not meet with any male who isn’t a close relative. They may not attend lectures inside the university. They must send a skivvy to borrow any books from the library. They can take exams but will never get a degree.
Harriet and her friend, Vee, are expelled after they play a prank that challenges these constraints.
Harriet owns a book of fairy tales that was written by her beloved grandmother and adds her own tales, telling of feisty women who go on quests and confront monsters and who refuse to marry unless for love.
Harriet’s attempt to get the book published and her friendship with the unconventional Vee result in her becoming the heroine of a tale that must never be told.
Book 2 in the Grandmothers’ Footsteps series
A Teller of Tales
MAY 2022
Tale tāl, n. An act of telling: a narrative, story: a false story: a mere story: (in pl.) things told idly or to get others into trouble: reckoning (arch,). (Chambers English Dictionary)
Lizzie lives with her family in the mining town of Wednesbury, Staffordshire. Frustrated by the constraints put on females in the 1820s, she tells Bobbit, her damaged, younger brother, tales of independent, brave and feisty girls; girls who go on quests to put right wrongs; girls who use their prize money to set up all-female schools; girls who spurn the Prince’s offer of marriage because she doesn’t love him; girls who teach young princesses, not the traditional subjects of dance, art and music, but where the stars go during the daytime, where worms live and how to listen to the stories the rivers tell. Only when Bobbit takes one of her stories literally, with disastrous results, does Lizzie realise that her brother really does understand more than she, or anyone, ever thought.
Real life, however, isn’t a fairy tale and any bid Lizzie makes for adventure or independence is thwarted because she is a female; even her fairy tales are rejected for publication as not being ‘suitable.’
Lizzie has to make a decision. Is the chance of the life she has always dreamed of worth the price she will have to pay? Will it give her a happy ever after?
Book 1 in the Grandmothers’ Footsteps series
Sold for a Song
FEBRUARY 2023
Philippe, the narrator of this tale, is secretary to Count De Lorenzo, and lover to the Count’s young wife. He is tasked with buying young boys from poor villagers, having them castrated and taking them to Florence to be taught to sing as castrati. The parents are told that their sons are especially blessed with their wonderful voices and they do not object to the boys making a physical sacrifice in order to thank and praise the Lord; nor to the bag of gold they are given in exchange.
The boys are innocents, victims of circumstances beyond their control. Surely they can have nothing to do with a barber’s mysterious death, or the suicide of an abusive Jesuit priest?
This is a tale of passion, revenge, guilt, regret, loss and redemption.
The Jewel Garden
FEBRUARY 23RD 2018
I am thrilled that my debut novel has been published and is available for others to read. It is set in a time when women were starting to rebel against Victorian conventions and to strive for their independence. This is a story of Hannah Russell’s physical, emotional and artistic journey from the back streets of the East End of London to the noisy souks and sandy wastes of Egypt; from the labyrinthine canals of Venice to the lonely corridors of Russell Hall in Kent. Hannah thinks she has found love with Mary De Morgan, a writer of fairy tales and one of William Morris’s circle of friends. But where there is devotion there can also be deceit and where there is hope there also dwells despair.
Out of the Shadows: The Life and Works of Mary De Morgan
2012
Who was Mary De Morgan and why should she be dragged out of the shadows cast by her illustrious parents, her male siblings and the members of the Arts and Crafts circle in which she moved? Why should the academic spotlight be shone onto her life and works?
De Morgan (1850–1907) was undoubtedly a woman of her time: she was unmarried and therefore one of the million or so “odd” women who had to earn their own living, which she did mainly by writing. She was one of the many who took part in the great effort to “improve” the lives of the poor in the East End of London; she was caught up in the spiritualist phenomena, not only because her mother was an ardent supporter and practitioner, but also because De Morgan herself was considered to be a “seer”; she, like many Victorians, suffered from the curse of tuberculosis but despite going to live in Egypt for health reasons, she then became the directress of a girls’ reformatory until her death.
Enchanted Ideologies:
A Collection of Rediscovered Nineteenth-Century English Moral Fairy Tales
2010
All of the fairy tales in this book were written and read during the nineteenth century--a very few may still have been read in the early twentieth century--but any surviving copies have been abandoned in dark corners of libraries and second-hand bookshops; none has hitherto been considered worthy of republication. This lack may, in some cases, be justifiable, but nevertheless every text has an important place in literary history as a contribution to, and a result of, the time in which it was written. The fairy tales in this collection are presented, therefore, as texts which are indicators, instigators, or inhibitors of social change.
Get In Touch
Please feel free to contact me if you’ve got any comments or questions for me, I’d love to hear from you.
