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.

~~~~~

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 Son-in-Law - Charity Norman

This is the second novel I have read by Charity Norman; I was very impressed by After the Fall, and though that remains my favourite of the two, there is much to admire in this, her latest offering, The Son-in-Law.  (You can read my thoughts on After the Fall here. Freeing Grace is on my to be read asap pile).

The Son-in-Law opens with an explosive short section – one of the exhibits in a criminal case at Leeds Crown Court - the transcript of a telephone call made to the emergency services by a ten-year-old girl named Scarlett, recounting what has just happened to her mother Zoe; Scarlett’s father Joseph hit her. 

Then the main narrative begins, we move forward a few years, and we discover the aftermath of what happened, and we learn what the present and future might hold for all those affected by Zoe’s death. (Her death is no secret; it is revealed in the synopsis to the novel that she was killed.)

Three voices tell us the tale: we hear about the lives of Scarlett and of Hannah, Zoe’s mother, in their own intimate first-person accounts, and then Joseph Scott, Zoe’s husband and Scarlett’s father, whose side is told at a slight distance through a third-person narrator. 

Hannah's holds her son-in-law Joseph fully responsible for Zoe's death. Hannah is riddled with grief, bereft that her only child is gone from the world. Together with her husband, she has cared for the three children left behind when Zoe passed away and Joseph went to prison. Scarlett is Zoe's daughter and her eldest child; there are two brothers as well. Scarlett is now in her teenage years. Joseph is emerging from prison in Leeds having served his sentence. He has lost his wife, his career as a teacher, and his three children. He feels that Hannah never liked him and that he wasn't good enough for Zoe. Now he wants his children back, something Hannah can't even contemplate.

The family is so torn, filled with pain and hurt, wanting to do the right thing for the children. The anguish and loss is strongly felt by the reader; it’s an emotional read, and one that makes you think, it causes the reader to debate internally and consider the outcomes and where the children might be best suited, who they ought to be with, and it’s certainly a tricky one, despite what your gut reaction might be. I had to think twice about what I thought the best outcome was.

The novel deals with another difficult subject, that of mental health. I didn't realise this when I started reading, and I found it a bit upsetting when I discovered this. I felt strongly that Zoe ought to have had more help and support and I would have liked this area to have been explored in a bit more detail; this was the main weakness of the story for me. 

I do enjoy this author's writing style very much. She writes convincingly in different voices, from that of a girl to a grandmother, building rounded characters, and revealing character cleverly. The interactions between the characters feel believable, with credible dialogue used very effectively. The touching relationship between Hannah and her ageing, wonderful husband Frederick, whose health starts to fail, is tenderly portrayed. We are drawn into this family's life, and there is light and shade in these characters, as with real life, no one is perfect, they have redeeming features and they have weaknesses, and there is no easy answer to what they face; far from it. 

I also enjoyed the Yorkshire setting, the mentions of the city of York, and the use of authentic expressions. (Between this and After the Fall, Charity Norman has used two of my favourite places in the world, Yorkshire and New Zealand, as her settings, which I've really enjoyed.) The author's background as a barrister added authenticity to the sections dealing with legal procedure, and the dealings with the family court advisor Lester Hardy felt plausible; I liked how his character was brought into the tale, someone who looked at both sides and offered an unbiased interpretation of the situation. 

This is a painful, emotionally raw story that examines the deep wounds left behind after the tragic death of a beloved daughter, mother and wife. It was heartbreaking and at times upsetting, and Charity Norman doesn't avoid the sad realities of this difficult situation for all concerned, but the story also offers hope and looks at people's ability to forgive and build bridges even when it feels impossible. This author isn't afraid of tacking life-changing themes, and she is a must-read for me now.

Published by Allen and Unwin

Thanks to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

You can find the author on twitter @CharityNorman1 

After the Fall - Charity Norman

‘I hoped I was dreaming, because this was a terrifying nightmare.’

Five-year-old Finn is taken by rescue helicopter to hospital one night after a fall from the upstairs balcony of his family home deep in rural New Zealand. He has been known to sleepwalk, so the fall was surely just a terrible accident. However, Finn’s mum Martha knows more about what happened that night than she is prepared to reveal to those questioning it.

The McNamara family has moved to New Zealand to make a new start. There newfound paradise is idyllic but it won’t be without problems or challenges for them all. The move was prompted by a need to escape and try to find a new life for them, especially for Martha and husband Kit, an artist whose business in the UK has failed as so many others have, and whose thoughts were descending into despair at where his life was heading. Martha thinks the move will offer a chance to save him and revitalise his painting with the beautiful landscapes they discover all around them. Martha and Kit’s twin sons, Finn and Charlie see it all as an adventure; they’ll miss their Grandfather and friends but will soon adapt to the new place and see all the possibilities for play and exploration. Martha’s daughter from a previous relationship, Sacha, is sixteen-years-old and for her it is a difficult time to be separated from everything she has even known.

The narrative shifts in time, and the author builds up the background to the move, introducing us to Martha’s sister and father, to Sacha’s life at school, and to Kit’s troubles. We are aware of the history that has prompted the family to move.

This is a lovely novel, so well written, with a central character in Martha that has so much to deal with, and tries to do the best she can for her family. She carries secrets from the past, and she has her love tested to the absolute limits. Martha is a compelling narrator and one whose voice I was gripped by throughout. We learn of her relationship with her mother, we see her grow and change in New Zealand, taking on a new job, having to be so strong to deal with things affecting her family, and yet finding moments to become Martha, not mother or wife but just herself, and to experience growth in her own life:

‘I felt a sense of something deep within myself, something I didn’t quite recognize. After thinking for some minutes I realized that I was actually proud of myself. I’d done something I’d been afraid to do. For once I hadn’t sat on the fence and watched my children; I hadn’t been the photographer, the waver-off, the cheerer on the sidelines. It had been a long time since I’d had an achievement that wasn’t vicarious.’

Martha spends a lot of the novel in difficult situations, with scenarios to deal with and decisions to make that no-one would envy. She is human, she is flawed, and I warmed to her and willed things to go right. Her character prompted me to think about her motivations and about how I would react to the events that befall her; would I react in the same way? Sacha is also a well-drawn and complex character.

More than one character needs the opportunity for a second chance and for forgiveness, both of which are dominant themes in the novel. Despite there being a lot to express about the issues that are dealt with in the story, I feel that to say anymore about them here would spoil it for those yet to read the book – you must discover the twists and turns as you read.

This well-written novel made me think about family and love, the bonds that are so tight between a mother and her children, between a husband and wife, and how that love and trust that we develop and depend on can be severely stretched and tested, how deeply those we love the most can hurt us, and the power of forgiveness.

I was very impressed by this novel throughout; the storytelling, the characters and the development of both were strong and well handled. I felt like every encounter and conversation drove the narrative on and had a purpose towards the story as a whole, there was nothing surplus as can sometimes be the case.

Charity Norman deals sensitively and yet thoroughly with modern day issues that can be frightening for all involved, and will test this family to the limits of love.

It’s a book that I wanted both to read quickly and discover how the plot unfolded and yet wanted to savour and not to come to an end because I was really enjoying reading it.

New Zealand is a country I’ve spent time traveling in myself and which I love, and it was wonderful to read a novel set there, indeed to read about a family’s dream to start again there. The author incorporates aspects of Maori mythology into the conversations with some of the friends the family makes, which I enjoyed reading.

The storyline totally captivated me and I found it very moving; at the end I shed a few tears at the outcome. I wish my review could do it even a bit of justice. This is a talented author at work. More please.

Published by Allen and Unwin

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

After the Fall is one of the Richard and Judy Book Club picks for Spring 2013

You can find the author on twitter @CharityNorman1 and on facebook here.