26th Nov 2014

Meet My Character: Blog Hop

This is an unusual blog for me as I don’t often write about my books (a situation that will change as I am upgrading/changing my website soon – watch this space!) but the notion came via a lovely invitation from the wonderful writer, Josephine Pennicott, author of the fabulous Poet’s Cottage and Currawong Manor as well as award-wining crime novels. This is a “meet my character blog”, where I answer questions about a character from one of my books or a work in progress. I have chosen to discuss the lead character in my latest novel, The Brewer’s Tale which is published by MIRA, Harlequin. I really hope you enjoy learning a little more about her – thank you for the opportunity, Josephine!

My latest novel

My latest novel

 

1.) What is the name of your character?

When the reader first meets her, she’s called Anneke Sheldrake but due to circumstance, she undergoes a slight name change, taking her mother’s family’s name and hoping it gives her some anonymity and autonomy as well as the ability to put the past behind her.

2.) Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

She is most definitely a fictional person but her life-story is grounded in historical research and fact. Some women had incredibly tough and poignant lives and Anneke’s, with all its trials and tribulations, reflects that.

3.) When and where is the story set?

It’s set in early Fifteenth Century England, commencing in the fictional town of Elmham Lenn (on the east coast of England and loosely modelled on Bishop’s Lynn (now King’s Lynn) and Cromer) before moving to Dover, then Southwark. In order to be authentic, I not only read many, many books, articles, spoke to brewers and distillers and poured over old maps, my old life as a cartographer came in handy after allbut in the final stages of editing, travelled to the United Kingdom. At one stage, I wandered along the Thames, walking in my characters’ footsteps. I stood on the banks of the river, in Southwark, in approximately the place Anneke ends up living, which is in a dwelling called “The Swanne”. Lo and behold, when I turned my back upon the river to see what was built there now, what did I see but this…

The modern day "The Swan", Bankside, Soithwark

    A modern day pub called “The Swan”. I confess, I welled up and then went had a drink (or two) to celebrate! How amazing is that – not that I was drinking –  but the serendipity of it all?

 

 

 

 

4.) What should we know about him/her?

Medieval beer barrels

After her father drowns at sea, and Anneke and her young siblings are left orphans, she is forced to make a living in order to keep her family together, so turns to what once made her mother’s family in The Netherlands prosperous, brewing ale. This not only drives her into competition with nearby producers but more significantly, the local priory who dominate the market and do not like others impinging on their trade. Beyond being an excellent and ethical brewer, Anneke is loyal, brave, smart and lovely – inside and out. But she finds being a female brewer tarnishes her reputation and exposes herself and those she loves to terrible danger.

 

5.) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

The main conflict comes in the form of people and organisations with power – familial, social, financial, class, political, those who don’t like seeing a single, talented and lovely woman succeed – so the people representing these forces come in various shapes, sexes and sizes, from family relations to bailiffs, ale-conners, sheriffs, and the church.

There is much that “messes up” her life, and in this regard, despite so much happening, it reflects what women of that era endured. But there is always hope and love and friendship  as well.

 

6.) What is the personal goal of the character?

To be ethical and successful; to be loyal in love and life, to care for those for whom she is responsible and to not let injustice, in any guise, win.Different kinds of beers

 

7.) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

It’s called The Brewer’s Tale. It was its working title (drawing inspiration from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – it even features the Wife of Bath as a character)  and that never changed. You can read more about it at Harlequin’s website (which also features a video with me discussing this and my next novel)   http://www.harlequinbooks.com.au/product/9781488742620  or just Google the title.

 

8.) When can we expect the book to be published or when was it published?

It was published by MIRA, Harlequin October this year!

Cheers and thank you!
Beer Mo

 

 

Now it is my turn to nominate another author to introduce you to their character. It is with great pleasure, that I would like to introduce you to Sheryl Gwyther.

Sheryl Gwyther_image1Sheryl is a children’s author and artist who has written many books, such as the wonderful Secrets of Eromanga, as well as Secrets of Eromanga

plays and short stories and is actively involved in the writing community and very generous with her time and support. I know she is juggling many writing balls at the moment, so I’m looking forward to discovering which of her characters she decides to let us meet.

 

Over to you, Sheryl!

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10th Jun 2014

Book Review: Currawong Manor by Josephine Pennicott

In this atmospheric and historically detailed tale set in the Blue Mountains, Josephine Pennicott tells the story of Elizabeth Thorrington, a renown photographer, who’s inviCurrawong Manorted to the home her famous grandfather, the artist, Rupert Partridge, Currawong Manor, in order to photograph the house and some of the people that used to live there for a new book that’s been commissioned. This book is set to celebrate the life and talents of Rupert. But Currawong Manor is a place of secrets and regrets, of lies and deceptions, of long-held suspicions and is the place where a great tragedy happened many years earlier. A tragedy for which no satisfactory explanation has ever been provided… until perhaps now…

Knowing her family’s tortured history, Elizabeth is a rather sad and quite prickly young woman, who has her own skeletons in the closet. Introduced to the current residents as well as one of her grandfather’s muses, the still vibrant and sassy Ginger, Elizabeth is keen to commence the project for which she’s been commissioned and delighted to be working with one of her grandfather’s “Flowers” as the young women were known back then.

Back in the 1940s, Ginger was one of three young women who lived with her grandfather, his wife, Doris and their lovely young daughter Shalimar, and posed for his many paintings. Whispered about, the source of much gossip and speculation as well as desire, regarded as a “fallen woman”, Ginger has risen above her origins as a “Surrey Hill rat” to become celebrated in her own right. Aware of the debt she owes Rupert and his legacy, grateful for the chance he once gave her, Ginger has agreed to be interviewed and photographed, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

Elizabeth also meets the former musician and journalist, Nick, who has made a living writing “true crime” stories and who has been hired to write the prose that will accompany Elizabeth’s photographs for the new book.

Curious about what happened back in the 1940s when so many lives were cruelly cut short, and determined to uncover the truth, Elizabeth quickly realises that Ginger and another resident at the Manor, Dolly, know more than they are prepared to tell.

Determined to get the heart of the matter, to clear her grandfather’s reputation and find out what really happened all those years ago, Elizabeth not only has to confront her family’s past, but the toll that years of secrets and dissembling has taken upon her and those she loves most.

Dark, the story unfolds languidly, moving the reader backwards in time before returning to the present, weaving a tapestry of mood and affect. Different points of view dominate, but mainly Elizabeth and Ginger’s and it’s through these two women that the reader, like those who study the challenging works of art and photographs that pepper the narrative, telling their own story, comes to understand the truth. We have to look closely, delve deeper, read the imagery and the meanings that accrue around people, their actions and the objects they hold dear in order to uncover the secrets. Just as Rupert used symbols to expose the brutality and callousness of war and the human wreckage it leaves behind, so too, Pennicott uses the architecture of the house and the magnificent grounds with its abundant flora as well as the haunting and dangerous Owlbone Woods (which is a character in itself), to hint at what’s to come, at what lies below the surface.

The settings are richly and beautifully drawn. You can smell the flowers, feel the cold press of the snow or the dewy warmth of a humid summer. Likewise, as the mystery unravels, you can feel the whispers of the past and the weight of guilt that hangs upon those who carry their secrets, determined to protect themselves and others. Like the birds that occasionally darken the eaves of the house, doom walks through the pages and reading Currawong Manor becomes a visceral experience – at once exciting and dramatic.

A Gothic treat for lovers of mystery, family dramas, history and suspense.

 

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14th Apr 2012

Book Review: Poet’s Cottage by Josephine Pennicott

This is a wonderful, haunting piece of work that starts in the present day when newly divorced Sadie, along with her teenage daughter, Betty, moves to the sea-village of Pencubitt in Tasmania to claim an inheritance, the benignly and yet appropriately named house, Poet’s Cottage. On arrival, Sadie finds herself welcomed by both the rather closed and sPoet's Cottageomewhat eccentric community and the gorgeous house that, according to locals, needs a writer and, particularly a Tatlow, to bring it to life. Once the home of Sadie’s grandmother, the infamous children’s author, Pearl Tatlow, Sadie knows little about her relative except that her mother adored her and what she can glean from the children’s books her grandmother wrote and the snippets of delicious scandal that follow in Pearl’s wake. The other certainty that rightly  unnerves Sadie and Betty is that Pearl was brutally murdered in the cellar of Poet’s Cottage – a death that seems to have leached into the very foundations and walls of the house itself. As the killer was never found and Pearl’s presence lingers, not only in the house, but in the memories (written and otherwise) of many of the villagers, Sadie determines to unravel the mystery of her grandmother’s death and try and resolve the conflicting stories she’s told about Pearl Tatlow: which was she? Adored mother and talented writer, whimsical, imaginative and warm? Or a selfish seductress and abusive mother and wife who cared for little but herself? Sadie must delve deeply to find the truth, crack open the shell of lies and fabrications to reveal the real woman behind the shiny, beauteous facade. Pearl is, in this regard, aptly named: she is either a precious thing buried beneath layers of grimy history and skewed familial and local stories or she is merely a broken promise, an empty shell devoid of depth. There are risks to this kind of search for the truth as Sadie is about to find out…

Segueing between past and present, from first person narrative (being an unedited version of a published book about Pearl called Webweaver, written by a local, the interesting Birdie) to third person, as a reader you’re drawn into both Pearl and Sadie’s stories that centre on family, relationships, female desire, social standards, gossip, assumptions and the power of words. This book is, in so many ways, a tale about the way words shape, inspire, create and destroy. How they can both build and harm. The Tatlows and others in the novel are either professional users of words or people who deploy them with a specific purpose such as in letters or wills. Within these forms, they construct versions of events, history and themselves… But for what purpose and what, if anything, are they hiding or revealing? What is fact? What is fiction? Just as writers construct imaginative worlds and tales for others to escape into, it seems other characters are not above doing this for themselves, whether it be a children’s book, a work of non-fiction, letters, retellings of occasions or conversations  or even Betty’s wistful blogs, reconstructing themselves in the process. In all these modes, the subjective nature of ‘truth’ is exposed and questioned as is the transformative ability of words. Through words, of the novel and those given to the characters, imagination and memory are shown to be powerful tools that are wielded freely and in ways that mirror how we utilise both to protect, preserve, alter events to privilege a specific version and hasten forgetting of another. But this is not the time for fiction… Sadie wants and needs facts, but they’re proving harder to uncover than she ever realised.

The story is also about survival – surviving loss, the abnegation of longing, abuse, thwarted desires, and shattered or even fulfilled dreams and the role memory can play in these as well. It’s about female bonds and the capacity women have for great unity and destruction – mostly of each other. As we follow the many threads that weave both Pearl’s tale and thus Sadie’s, we’re seduced into a particular kind of thinking and believing. It’s testimony to Pennicott’s exquisite prose that just as you think you understand where the characters and stories are heading, your expectations are overturned. I loved this about the novel. What I also loved is that I could see these characters; what they wore, ate, how they walked. I could feel the wind on my face, walk through the misty streets of Pencubitt, and feel the cold embrace of Poet’s Cottage. Pennicott evokes time and place with a light and meaningful touch: a word, a mood, a gesture all bring the past and present lives of those dwelling in the village into acute focus.

This is a gorgeous, sometimes harrowing but always moving and deep story that remains with you long after the last page. Simply lovely. A triumph.

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