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Monday 17 September 2012

Barbados Bound by Linda Collison


Barbados Bound

It all started with a ship. On April 14,1999, I saw in the newspaper a startlingly anachronistic colour photograph of a three-masted wooden ship under sail. It looked like it had just sailed out ofthe eighteenth century. Below it, an intriguing advertisement:

Help wanted: Deckhands to man floating museum…a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sail as crew on Endeavour, the replica of Capt.James Cook’s ship that will visit Hawaii in November. Crewmembers sleep in hammocks slung together on the lower deck. They must be prepared to go aloftand work the sails at any time of day in any weather, not suffer from chronicseasickness or fear of heights, and be physically fit. Sailing experience is not essential…

     Six months later my husband and I were at the dock in Vancouver, signing ship's articles.
     We are sailors, my husband Bob and I. We have a sailboat of our own and quite a few nautical miles under our belts, but we knew essentially nothing about sailing an 18th century,three-masted tallship.  
     The crew promised to teach the recruits everything we needed to know, and so we leaped at the opportunity. It sounded like a great adventure, and indeed it was. In fact, it changed my life and gave me a new passion: Maritime history. I actually went back to college to study history, having majored in Nursing, the first time around.

     Bob and I spent three weeks aboard the Endeavour, as part of the foremast watch, crossing the Northern Pacific Ocean. We learned the names and functions of the hundreds of lines, sails and spars that power the ship; we learned to climb aloft on the ratlines, stepping out on the foot ropes under the yards to make and furl sail. We took turns steering the ship and were responsible for cleaning and maintaining her in eighteenth-century fashion. We slept in hammocks we strung from the deckhead every evening. The voyage crew,as we green-but-willing sailors were called, bonded quickly, for we were all init together and we all felt the same swing of emotions -- anxiety, fear,fatigue, exhaustion, sea-sickness, hunger, occasionally resentment – but most of all, exhilaration and awe. For me, those weeks on the Endeavour were nothing short of a time machine.

     When Bob and I disembarked in Kona, Hawaii, I carried with me the seeds for a novel. It would not be about Captain Cook or his extraordinary voyages, but it would begin in the mid-eighteenth century, aboard a vessel quite like the one I had sailed on. I wanted to explore what it might have been like to have been a woman aboard a ship; not a passive passenger but a woman who takes an active part, who is part of the crew. My research proved there were many women aboard ships in the age of sail.  At least thirty and quite likey more, who dressed and worked as men.Their stories, when told, have typically been romanticized and somewhat discredited. I wanted to bring out the gritty reality. Working aboard the Endeavour helped me experience that. My experience as a registered nurse, specializing in Emergency and Critical Care, also came into play.

     My first historical novel was five years in the researching and writing. It wasoriginally published as Star-Crossed by Knopf/Random House, and chosenby the New York Public Library to be among the Books for the Teen Age --2007. Yet I hadn't really written it for teens, but from a teenaged girl's perspective.  
     I was so caught up with the characters and the historical background that I wrote a sequel, Surgeon's Mate, which Knopf turned down. They weren't interested in a series. But Fireship Press was. PublisherTom Grundner offered me a contract for Surgeon's Mate, and offered to publish Star-Crossed under a different title as soon as he could acquire it. As soon as Star-Crossed was out of print I obtained a reversion of rights, rewrote the manuscript and signed a contract with Fireship Press.  Barbados Bound was published in July, 2012.   The story is essentially the same as Star-Crossed, but I was able to correct a few anachronisms, introduce a minor characterwho appears in the sequel -- and add back a little salty language taken out of the first edition.  At last both books are under the same publisher, or aboard the same ship:  Fireship Press.

     It all started with a ship and an adventure -- and the adventure continues.  Bob and I just returned from a four-day sail on Topaz, our 36-foot sloop.  Sailing inspires me because the sea is aforce to be reckoned with. The sea connects us, it covers most of the earth, it is a portal to the past. It provides a rich backdrop for a novel because of its power and its historical importance. The sea offeres both freedom and imprisonment, it nurtures and destroys.  I both love the sea and fear it, and I hope that conflict is apparent in my novels.  Conflict, external and internal, is what drives my writing.

Linda Collison


Monday 10 September 2012

The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift


I was inspired to write The Gilded Lily by three things. First, the power of the stories we hear as children. Second, the Frost Fairs on the frozen Thames in the 1660's. And third, but not least, the contrasting characters of Ella and Sadie Appleby.

As a child I devoured books and stories of all types. One of my earliest memories is of my parents telling me fairy tales about Little Red Riding Hood and The Billy Goats Gruff, and hiding under the bed from the Big Bad Wolf. I had several dilapidated old books from my mother called "The Golden Wonder Books" which included tales of the Brothers Grimm, Tales from Shakespeare, Aesop and Homer, and poetry, all gorgeously illustrated by artists such as Arthur Rackham. From these stories I learnt about Knights and Princesses, about high morals and good behaviour. When I grew up I think I subconsciously looked for a Knight to sweep me off my feet, and it took me quite a few relationships and a divorce to realise that it wasn't going to be quite that easy! The values of the stories that we read seep in to us, but not just the stories we read, the stories other people tell us about ourselves. Ella Appleby has always been "the pretty one," and Sadie her sister "the skilful one" (and by implication, not pretty.) How does this affect them when they have to start their lives again from scratch, and must make their way in society? Ella tells stories all the time, but what is the difference between a story and a lie?

In the 1660's England was gripped by The Little Ice Age. Temperatures in the City of London dropped so low that the Thames iced over and the life-blood of the city froze in its veins. But London was just recovering from years of Puritan repression where all sorts of entertainment had been banned. The bears in the bear-baiting pits had been shot, not because bear-baiting was inhumane, but because the Puritans thought it was just too entertaining. So when Charles came back to the throne people were ready to celebrate and the frozen Thames provided another excuse for entertainment. The Frost Fairs had tented booths with alehouses and coffee shops; there was skating and ice bowls, jugglers and musicians. The King even paraded his horse guards over the ice. The combination of extreme weather, where birds froze in flight, and the determination of the people to nevertheless enjoy it, was a fascinating one.

After finishing The Lady's Slipper I had still more story to tell about Ella Appleby the maid. In The Lady's Slipper from Alice's point of view Ella is manipulative and lacking in morals. I wondered how she saw herself, and why she behaved the way she did, and gave her a book to herself to find out. (Though The Gilded Lily stands alone and you do not need to read the other book to understand the story.) Ella's saving grace is in her close relationship with her younger sister Sadie. The Gilded Lily explores the contrasting characters between the sisters as they struggle with their new lives and living with each other. One of the things I loved about writing them was that they were not the moneyed intellectuals who usually populate historical fiction. These were country girls, struggling to move upwards in society. I had to find a whole new language for them, a whole different set of moral values and aspirations. For them, perhaps stealing could be right, in some circumstances.

Once I started researching a whole supporting cast came along to help me tell Ella and Sadie's story - the handsome pawnbroker's son, the astrologer, the hard-nosed wigmaker, and the lovely lad with a love of stories.

‘There is no greater compliment than "give me more!" A delight’ Susanna Gregory
‘A beautifully-written blend of fast pace and atmospheric historical detail.' Gabrielle Kimm 
'Superbly written dialogue makes the characters absolutely real' Charlotte Betts
‘Beautifully written and meticulously researched, the novel drew me straight into the teeming streets of Restoration London. An addictive, page-turning read’ Mary Sharratt





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