Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin & Samantha Norman - Blog Tour

Today it's great to be hosting the blog tour for Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman. My stop features an extract from the novel for you to sample below. 

Published by Bantam Press on 12th February 2014 in Paperback, priced £7.99

Synopsis

Run, run, girl. In the name of God, run.

1141. A mercenary watches from the icy reeds as a little girl with red hair is attacked by his own men. He is powerless to stop them.

But a strange twist of fate brings them together again. Sheltering in a church, he finds the girl freezing cold, close to death, clutching a sliver of parchment. And now he is certain of what he must do.

He will bring her back to life. He will train her to fight. And he will protect her from the man who calls himself a monk, who lost a piece of parchment he will do anything to get back . . .

An epic account of the brutal winter when Stephen and Matilda tore England apart in their battle for its crown – when atrocities were inflicted on the innocent, but bravery found a home in an old solider and a young girl.

~~~~~

About the authors

Ariana Franklin was born in Devon and, like her father, became a journalist.

Having invaded Wales dressed in combat uniform with the Royal Marines for one of

their military exercises, accompanied the Queen on a royal visit, missed her own twenty first birthday party because she had to cover a murder, she married, almost inevitably,

another journalist. She then abandoned her career in national newspapers and settled

down in the country to bring up two daughters, study medieval history and write.

Ariana was the author of the acclaimed, award-winning Mistress of the Art of Death

series. She passed away in 2011, before she was able to deliver the manuscript for Winter Siege. Her daughter, Samantha, decided to complete the novel on her mother’s behalf.

Samantha Norman is a journalist and broadcaster who is mad about horses. She lives in west London with her two sons Harry and Charlie, and their dogs Becks and Spider.

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Extract

Winter Siege

Chapter One

The Cambridgeshire Fens, February 1141

At first, news of the war going on outside passed into the fenland without impact. It oozed into that secret world as if filtered through the green miasma of willow and alder that the fenlanders called ‘carr’, which lined its interminable rivers and reed beds.

At Scutney, they learned about it from Old Sala when he came back from his usual boat trip to Cambridge market where he sold rushes for thatching. He told the tale in the village church after the celebration of Candlemas.

‘Now yere’s King Stephen—’ he began.
‘Who?’ somebody asked.
Sala sighed with the exasperation of a much-travelled

man for the village idiot. ‘I told you an’ told you, bor. Ain’t Henry on the throne now, it’s Stephen. Old Henry’s dead and gone these many a year.’

‘He never told me.’

‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Him bein’ a king and dead.’
As always, the little wooden church smelled of cooking from the rush tapers that had been dipped in fat. Scutney couldn’t afford beeswax candles; anyway, rushes gave out a prettier light.
‘Get on with it, will ’ee?’ Brother Arth struggled out of the rough woollen cope he wore to take the services and into the sheepskin cloak that was his working wear in winter. ‘I got ditchin’ and molin’ to see to.’
They all had, but the villagers stayed where they were – it was as well to be informed about what was going on in them uplands.
Sala stretched back his shoulders and addressed his audience again. ‘So this King Stephen’s started a-warring with his cousin, the Empress Matilda. Remember as I told you old King Henry, on his deathbed, wanted his daughter, this Matilda, to rule England? But the nobles, they don’t want no blasted female queenin’ it over un, so they’ve said no and gives the crown to Stephen, old Henry’s nephew.’
He looked sternly into the standing congregation. ‘Got that now, Bert, have you? Good. Well now, Matilda, she ain’t best pleased with bein’ passed over and seems she’s brought a army as is a-fighting Stephen’s army out there some’eres.’
‘That it?’ Nyles wanted to know.
‘Enough, innit?’ Sala was miffed that Nyles, the big man of the village because he owned more sheep than anybody else, hadn’t been more receptive to the news. ‘I been tellin’ you as there’s a war goin’ on out there.’

Nyles shrugged. ‘Allus is.’
‘Excitin’, though, Pa, ain’t it?’ asked eleven-year-old Em, looking up at him.
Nyles cuffed his daughter lightly about her red head for her forwardness in speaking in church. She was his favourite, but it didn’t do to let females get out of hand, especially not this one. ‘Well, good luck to ’em, I say. And now let’s get on with that ditchin’ and bloody molin’.’
But Old Sala, irritated by the interruption, raised his hand. ‘I’ll tell you summat else, Nyles. And you’ll want to listen this time. Want to be keeping a close eye on that one, you will,’ he said, pointing at Em. ‘Folk say as there’s a band o’ mercenaries riding round ’ere like the wild hunt and with ’em there’s a monk; likes red-heads, he does. Does terrible things when ’e finds ’em too.’
Nyles shook his head indulgently and turned towards the door. He knew Old Sala with his scaremongering and preposterous tales of abroad and yet he suddenly felt in- explicably chilly and, without realizing it, had reached out and drawn the child closer to him. Daft old bugger.
‘That it then, Sala?’ he asked. The old man looked deflated but nodded and with that the men, women and children of Scutney trooped out of its church to continue their own, unceasing war – against water.
The North Sea, that great enemy, was always threaten- ing to drown East Anglia in one of its rages, submerging fields and cattle, even lapping the just-above-sea-level islands that dotted the flattest land in England. In winter, the sluggish rivers and great drains had to be cleared of weed or they clogged and overflowed.

Oh, and the mole, as big an enemy as the sea, had to be killed to stop the little bugger from weakening the dykes with his bloody tunnels.
No, the people of Scutney didn’t have time from their watery business to bother about wars between the danged nobles. Anyway, they were safe because just over there – over there, bor, see them towers in the distance? – was Ely, greatest cathedral in England.
Every year, the villagers had to deliver four thousand glistening, squirming eels to Ely in return for being protected by St Etheldreda, whose bones lay in a jewelled tomb within the cathedral walls.
Powerful saint, Etheldreda, an Anglo-Saxon like themselves, and although Scutney people resented the number of eels they had to catch in order to feed her monks, they were grateful to her for keeping them safe from the outside world with its battles and carryings-on.
Oh yes, any bugger who came a-trampling and a-killing in this part of the fens ’d soon have his arse kicked out of it by good old St Ethel.
That’s if the bugger could find Scutney in the first place and didn’t drown in the meres or get led astray by spirits of the dead who took the shape of flickering Jack-o’- Lantern flames in the marshes by night.

Folk allus said that for an enemy force to attack Ely it’d take a traitor to show the secret causeways leading to it. And who’d be so dang-blasted stupid as to betray St Etheldreda? Get sent straight to Hell, he would.
Such was the attitude.
But a traitor was even now preparing his treachery, and the war was about to penetrate Scutney’s fenland for all that St Etheldreda in her 500-year-old grave could do about it.

The first the village knew of its fate was when soldiers sent by Hugh Bigod turned up to take its men away to build him a new castle.
‘Bigod?’ roared Nyles, struggling between two captors while his red-headed elder daughter batted at their legs with a frying pan. ‘We don’t owe him nothing. We’re Ely’s men.’
Hugh Bigod, newly Earl of Norfolk, owned a large pro- portion of East Anglia. The Scutney villagers had seen him in his fine clothes swanking it at Ely with their bishop during Christmas feasts and suchlike. Didn’t like him much. But then, they didn’t like anybody from Norfolk. Didn’t like the next village across the marshes, come to that.
Nor was he their overlord, as was being energetically pointed out to his soldiers. ‘Tha’s not law, bor. We ain’t none of his. What’s he want another castle for? He’ve got plenty.’
‘And now he do want another one,’ the soldiers’ sergeant  said, ‘in case Empress Matilda do attack un. There’s a war on, bor.’

‘Ain’t my war,’ Nyles told him, still struggling.
‘Is now,’ the sergeant said, ‘and if them nippers of yourn don’t cease bashing my legs, they’ll be its next bloody casualties.’
For Em had now been joined by her younger sister, Gyltha, wielding an iron spit.
‘Leave it,’ Nyles told his girls. But they wouldn’t, and their mother had to drag them off.
Holding them tightly, Aenfled watched her husband and every other able-bodied man being marched off along the roddon that led eventually to Cambridge.
‘Us’ll be back, girl,’ Nyles shouted at her over his shoulder, ‘but get they sheep folded, an’ don’t ’ee sell our hay for a penny under thruppence a stook, an’ look to that danged roof afore winter’s out, and . . .’ He had suddenly remembered Old Sala’s warning in the church. ‘Keep Em close...’ And then he was too far away to be heard.
The women of Scutney stood where they were, their men’s instructions becoming fainter and fainter until only an echo came sighing back to them and even that faded so that the air held merely the frightened bawling of their babies and the call of geese flying overhead.
They didn’t cry; fenwomen never wept.

The men still hadn’t come back by the beginning of Lent. It was a hard winter, that one. Birds dropped out of the air, killed by the cold. The rivers froze and dead fish could be seen enclosed in their ice. The old died in their huts; the sheep in their pens.

In the turbaries, spades dulled themselves on peat that had become as hard as iron, so that fuel became scarce and it was necessary for tired, overworked women and their families to venture further and further away from the village in order to retrieve the peat bricks that had been stacked a year before to provide fire for shepherds during the lambing season.
On St Valentine’s Day, it was the turn of Aenfled and her children to trundle a barrow into the marsh to fetch fuel. They’d left nothing behind in the woolly line and the thickness of their wrappings made them look like disparately sized grey statues perambulating through a grey landscape. Their breath soaked into the scarves round their mouths and turned to ice, but a veil of mist in the air promised that the weather might, just might, be on the turn. The children all carried bows and arrows in case a duck or goose flew within range.
Tucked into Em’s belt was a little carved wooden key that Durwyn, Brother Arth’s son, had shyly and secretly shoved into her hand that morning.
Gyltha wouldn’t leave the subject alone. ‘Wants to unlock your heart, he do. You got to wed un now.’
‘Sod that,’ Em said. ‘I ain’t never getting married and certainly not to a saphead like Durwyn. Anyways, I ain’t old enough an’ he ain’t rich enough.’
‘You kept his old key, though.’

‘Tha’ll be on the fire tonight,’ Em promised her. ‘Keep us warm.’

They stopped; they’d felt the drumming of hoofbeats through their boots. Horsemen were cantering along the causeway behind them.
‘Get into they bloody reeds,’ hissed Aenfled. She pushed her barrow over the causeway’s edge and tumbled her children after it.
Horses were rare in the fenland, and those travelling at speed suggested their riders were up to no good. Maybe these were friendly, maybe not, but lately there’d been nasty rumours of villages sacked by demons, women raped – sometimes even murdered – and grain stores burned. Aenfled was taking no chances.
There was just time to squirm through the reeds to where the thick, bare fronds of a willow gave them some cover.
Her hand clasped firmly over the mouth of her younger daughter, not yet old enough to be silenced with a look, Aenfled prayed: Sweet Mary, let un go past, go past.
Go past, go past, urged Em, make un go past. Through the lattice of reeds above her head, she saw flicks of earth being thrown up as the leading horses went by. She bowed her head in gratitude. Thank ’ee, St Ethel, thank ’ee, I’ll never be wicked no more.
But one of the middle riders pulled up. ‘Swear as I saw something dive into that bloody ditch.’
‘Deer?’ One of the leaders stopped abruptly and turned his horse back. As he approached the wind picked up, lifting his robes and revealing the animal’s flanks, which were lathered white with sweat and dripping blood from a set of vicious-looking spurs.

Keeping still as still, Em smelled the stink of the men above her: sweat, dirt, horses, blood and a strange, pungent odour that was foreign to her.
‘Could ’a’ been.’
‘Flush the bastard out then. What are you waiting for?’ Spears began thudding into the ditch. One of the men
dismounted and started scrambling down, hallooing as he went.
Em knew they were done for. Then her mouth set itself into the thin, determined line that her sorely tried mother would have recognized and dreaded. No we ain’t. Not if I lead ’em away. She pushed her sister’s head more firmly into the ground and leaped for the bank. A willow twig twitched the cap from her head as she went, releasing the flame-red curls it hid beneath but, although she paused briefly, she didn’t stop for it. Now she was running.
Aenfled kept Gyltha clutched to her, her moans and prayers covered by the whoops of the men. She heard the one who’d come into the ditch climb back out of it and join the hunt. She heard hoofbeats start up again. She heard male laughter growing fainter as the riders chased their prey further and further into the marsh. She heard the far-away screams as they caught Em, and knew her daughter was fighting. She heard the horses ride off with her.
Birds of the marsh that had flown up in alarm settled back into their reed beds and resumed their silence. In the ditch Aenfled stopped praying.

Except for her daughter’s soul, she never prayed again.

~~~~~

The House of Trembling Leaves - Julian Lees - guest review

For readers not familiar with the Japanese invasion of Malaya during the second world war, or the results of Chairman Mao's teachings on the Chinese living in Malaya during the 1950s, or the Dhali Llama's flight from Tibet when that country was sealed up by the Chinese in the late 1950s; this is a book of fiction which has world events woven in very well indeed. This may be because the author, born in Hong Kong, and now living in Malaysia, has a background able to describe these happenings as part of his own history. And if this sounds heavy going, stay with me. This is a book with a nice flowing style, well rounded major characters, all with a story to tell. And very importantly, it's the story of two strong women friends – one a Chinese Malay, and one a Tibetan, whose lives are intertwined until their early twenties when a series of happenings split them up and both believe they may never see each other again.

Lu See is the Chinese, who with the help of some family money from an Aunt (spoken of, but never seen in the book) runs away to England, where she is sure to get a place at Girton College Cambridge if she studies hard. She takes with her Sum Sum, her servant, although there is no sign of servant and master, they really are close friends. Sum Sum becomes pregnant, and, very near the birth of her child, her friend Lu See becomes widowed, having married her Chinese lover soon after arriving in Cambridge – and it is not long after this when Lu See awakes one day to find that Sum Sum has fled, aiming to get back to her Tibetan homeland.

Some years later, we find that the Japanese are in Malaya, where Lu See is returned with her daughter Mabel, and is cooking for a Japanese officer in what was her own family home and things are not looking good. It's a dreadful time for everyone, but it has to be borne – Lu See is supporting her family on the (very) small pay that the officer doles out, and whilst she cooks him traditional English food like shepherd's pie and bubble and squeak, she and her family must exist on leftovers and rice – because the money doesn't stretch far. Things change at the end of WW2, and Lu See, still desperate to be in touch with her friend Sum Sum, moves her family to Kuala Lumpur and opens a restaurant.

It wouldn't be fair to tell you more of the story because there are lots of things happening and several darker characters which you will need to find for yourselves. But this was an easy book to read, despite it's 400 pages – it took me only a few days, and it's the sort of book where you just keep wanting to read “one more chapter”. Lots of real stuff and some gory details described well amongst the fiction, and the story itself was well worth the read. The publisher is Scottish – Sandstone Press, and has certainly picked a worthwhile book here – with two caveats. One is the mention of teabags in use by a working class landlady in Cambridge in 1936: although they were definitely invented many years before that, they were only starting to become used in Britain in 1950 after a push by Tetleys. The other is the cover.  I cannot see any reason whatsoever for having a naked girl in a field of flowers, or the use of drab colouring. It certainly has nothing at all to do with the story, and I wouldn't give it a second glance on the front table of Waterstones. Pity. 4 out of 5 for me.

Reviewed by Susan Maclean - guest reviewer

Published by Sandstone Press

Thanks very much to Susan for kindly reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library. Susan blogs at Mac-Adventures (with Books!)

Thanks very much to the publisher for kindly sending a review copy of this novel. 

Red Joan - Jennie Rooney

‘Nobody said what they did during the war. They were different times.’

Joan Stanley is an eighty-five-year-old grandmother living in south-east London. One morning she reluctantly answers the door to find the Security Services have come to question her about her past after all these years.

The dual time narrative structure of the novel is employed very effectively here, with the now elderly Joan recounting her story to the MI5 operatives, so that we move from the present to the past and back with her as we read.

We are transported back to 1937, Joan Robson is a student at Cambridge, where she meets and befriends Sonya Galich and her cousin Leo. Her friendship with them will shape her life. They are supporters of communism and Joan becomes involved with their activities though never commits herself wholly to the cause. When World War Two begins, Joan is recruited to work with scientists in a laboratory on the ‘Tube Alloys’ project – developing an atomic weapon. Over the coming years, as old friends leave and re-enter her life, and the war comes to a close with events she had hoped never to see, her character and her loyalties will be severely tested.

This spy novel which spans the period from the late 1930s to the time of the Cold War was inspired by a true story of a British spy who was unmasked after many years as having worked for the Soviets.

Red Joan boasts a gripping narrative and a compelling lead character. The intrigue builds and I found the progression of the plot towards the ending fascinating. I was engrossed and intrigued by Joan; she is at once an intelligent yet naïve character. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her life and about society then, Joan’s position as a woman working in a scientific field, pursuing studies and a career despite her mothers wishes, falling in love and learning for the first time how it felt to be truly loved in return, yet fraught at the situation she finds herself in, torn between loyalty to her country and the deep need to do what she feels is right. We see her grow convincingly as she learns from what has happened in her life. In a very fitting use of language, Joan ponders: ‘How strange the human mind is, she thinks. Unknowable and unpredictable, its thoughts whizzing like electrons inside an atom. Invisible to the human eye.’

This is an absorbing and accomplished novel and causes us to ask ‘Where does responsibility begin, and where does it end?’

Published by Chatto & Windus on 7th March 2013


I originally reviewed this novel for We Love This Book - thanks to them and to the publisher for a copy of this novel to read and review.

The Bellwether Revivals - Benjamin Wood

‘I’m not sure it’s possible to be exceptional without being a bit abnormal too. Goes with the territory.'

Oscar Lowe has escaped a humdrum life to create his own contented and independent existence away from his family in Watford, something that was more important to him at that time than continuing his education. Nevertheless he is a bright and inquisitive young man, living amongst the Cambridge colleges but outside of their world.

He meets Iris Bellwether one evening as he listens to the music coming from King’s College. Iris lights up his own world and what’s more, she opens up access to such a different world from his own. Oscar works at Cedarbrook, a nursing home in Cambridge where his good friendship with one of the residents, Dr Paulsen, has enlightened his reading and also is destined to introduce him to someone from his past who will have a key role to play the lives of Oscar and his new friends.

The wealth and privilege enjoyed by beautiful Iris, her clever but troubled brother Eden and their friends contrasts with Oscar’s experiences; he is drawn to them all, but feels they have a shared experience of the past that excludes him at times; ‘They were like a family. They called each other pet names…He had never been a s close to anyone as they were with each other.’

For Iris, time spent with Oscar is an escape from everything else in her life, the demands of her parents, her brother’s behaviour. She likens being with him to listening to the choir at King’s College; ‘They just relax me so much, I feel as if I’m free…I feel the same way with you, Oscar.’

The tension builds in the story as we learn more about Iris and Eden, and we wonder to what extent Eden will take his desire and need to prove the skills he believes he possesses, involving the others in his experiments too. Eden encapsulates the idea of genius that is not without a hint of madness. Iris tells Oscar that Eden needs ‘to feel power over everyone. It’s what sustains him.’ There is a temptation though to believe in the abilities that Eden professes to have; ‘trusting in things that seem like madness.’ Could there be any truth in his claims?

It’s enthralling to read on and be part of the events that the friends are involved in, to follow the development of the story and the relationships.

One of the major themes in the novel is music, and the power of music to move and affect people. Eden’s dramatic playing of the organ is vividly described:

‘This was an energetic music, angry and contagious, something feverish and knife-sharp. It was music like gushing water, like frantic animals being herded on a hillside, like all of the conversations in the world being spoken at once, like an ocean prising itself apart, like two great armies converging on each other.’

The Bellwether Revivals is a captivating and intelligent debut novel. In some ways it reminded me of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a book I love. I loved the Cambridge, Grantchester and Watford settings, the ideas discussed in the story, the closeness of the group of friends, and the looming sense of danger ahead. A thought-provoking and worthwhile read. 

Published by Simon & Schuster

You can find the author on twitter @bwoodauthor and on his website here.

Thank you to the publisher for the chance to read and review a copy of this novel. 

Cambridge Wordfest Spring 2012 - A literary afternoon.

I went along to my first ever Cambridge Wordfest last Friday. The festival ran from Friday 13th to Sunday 15th April 2012, but due to other commitments (a friend's wedding and the moving of a greenhouse!) I was only able to attend an event on the Friday. Nevertheless, it was a very worthwhile and rewarding one. I went along to the ADC theatre to hear Margaret Drabble, Helen Dunmore and Sadie Jones read from their most recent works, and talk about aspects of writing. The session was chaired by Festival Director, Cathy Moore, and it is the festival's 10th anniversary this year.

It was very interesting and informative. I must confess that I have read little by Margaret Drabble or Helen Dunmore, and that is something I intend to rectify, starting with The Greatcoat, the latest book by Helen Dunmore which I bought on the day. She was a delightful and impressive speaker and I really warmed to her at this event. It was fascinating hearing about the real background to the greatcoat which she has drawn on for the book. 

I am a big fan of Sadie Jones, having read all three of her novels to date, with her debut novel, The Outcast, being one of my all time favourite reads. So it was marvellous and exciting to have the opportunity to meet her and have my books signed. I must admit to feeling a bit nervous, even though all the authors were very friendly and approachable. My only wish would have been that it could have been longer than one hour. The works which the authors read from are A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman - Margaret Drabble, The Greatcoat - Helen Dunmore, and The Uninvited Guests - Sadie Jones.

I look forward to attending future festivals such as this one, and others. Did you attend this or any other literary festival recently? Who did you see?

Cambridge Wordfest website.