#SampleSunday: An Irregular Arrangement

For #SampleSunday this week I’ve got the first chapter of An Irregular Arrangement for you. It’s free when you subscribe to my newsletter.

An Irregular Arrangement
An Irregular Arrangement: Chapter 1 : Val
“I do not think,” announced the vicar’s wife from the lane with some gravitas, “that you should be up there, young man.”
Val peered down from the top of the crumbling orchard wall where she was balanced, reaching over to get the very last apple. “Blast!” she exclaimed quietly and aloud said, “Just one more? It’s the last one. Mr Scott’s only going to let them all drop and then turn the pigs in, I heard him say.”
Mrs Downs sighed. “Oh, it’s you, Miss Wilkinson. Hurry up, so I can pretend you’d already finished by the time I saw you.”
Val flinched at being called Miss Wilkinson but did as she was bid and carefully scrambled down the way she’d climbed up. The apples were gathered in her cap and she passed them to Mrs Downs as she took a moment to brush her clothes free from dust. Mrs Downs observed quietly as she straightened her trousers and pulled down her waistcoat. Val eyed her cautiously. The vicar and his wife had only been in the village a few months and although everyone seemed to think they were decent sorts; decent sorts generally didn’t have much truck with people running round in unsuitable clothing and stealing apples.
“Flora Downs, by the way,” the woman offered a hand to shake, and Val took it. “Do call me Flora, please. I’m very pleased to meet you properly, we’ve only seen each other in passing. Would you like to come for breakfast?” Flora said, after a moment contemplating each other. “The vicar is away today…I’ve just walked him to the station, actually…and it would be nice to have some company.”
Val looked at her. She didn’t look much older than Val. Val was twenty-one but probably appeared younger with her hair cropped short and masculine clothing. “Valentine Wilkinson. Val. Hello. I’d love to,” she said in a burst of honesty, finally shaking the hand she was still holding. “But I need to drop the apples into Mrs Porter behind the smithy first. She’s not doing well since the new baby came and the other two young ones are hungry all the time. I said I’d see what I could do help.”
Flora gave Val an assessing look. “Come on then,” she said. “We can do that and then go and have some porridge at the vicarage. I’ve met most people by now, but I haven’t managed to pin you down.”
Val made a muffled yelping sound and juggled the apples to avoid answering. She’d made a categorical mistake in being noticed at all. Fading into the background was one of her special skills. She pulled energy from the border and thought herself small and people seemed to ignore her. She’d been so focused on the apples though, that she’d forgotten to keep it up when Flora spoke to her and now she was stuck. Although… Val glanced sideways to the small woman striding along beside her, skirts kicking around at a modest length above her ankles in the dust of the road, boots and dress pretty but practical, long hair turned up sensibly under a neat cloche hat, clear skin, pretty smile…it perhaps wasn’t the disaster it could have been.
“Have you met Mrs Porter?” she asked.
“No, I haven’t. I was told she probably wouldn’t appreciate a visit because she goes to the chapel, not the church.”
Val nodded. “That’s true. But none of them are talking to her because they realised she caught for the baby after her husband had died.” She grimaced. “No-one asked her what happened, they just judged her. I found out what was going on yesterday.”
“Well,” said Flora. “We need to get that sorted out as soon as possible, then. I’ll talk to the vicar when he gets home. We can help her if she’ll allow it.”
Val nodded. “I brought some bread and things this morning and dropped in and then I remembered the apples and thought I’d get them before the pigs. The children aren’t very old.”
****
It wasn’t long before they were in the vicarage kitchen. The ancient range was lit and Lily Richards, who came in every day to look after the house, was taking off her coat. “Morning, Missus, morning Miss Wilkinson,” she said. She didn’t quite meet Val’s eye. Quite a few of the more respectable villagers wouldn’t, these days. They didn’t like the trousers and they couldn’t see Val as a man, in the way that people who hadn’t know them growing up usually did if they met her dressed as she liked to dress.
“Good morning, Lily,” Flora said. “Are you going to get on with the bedrooms this morning?”
“Yes, Missus. I was going to strip the sheets from yours; and Sally’s coming to do the laundry in a couple of hours. I’m just going to light the copper for her.”
Flora nodded. “Wonderful, thank you. I’ll make a cup of tea and give you a shout when it’s brewed, shall I?”
“Lovely, thank you, Missus.”
“Take a seat,” Flora gestured to the long, scrubbed kitchen table. “We eat in here unless we’ve got company. The dining room is like something out of Dickens, it’s so gloomy. We get the sun in here.”
The room was on the corner of the house and faced both south and east. The early autumn sun was pouring in. It shot the soft brown of Mrs Downs’ hair through with red highlights, like a fox’s coat glinting russet against a hedgerow.
Val sat whilst Flora pottered about putting porridge in a pan and boiling the kettle.
“Don’t you have servants for this?” Val asked.
“Only Lily. I don’t much like having people in and out of the house, to be honest. I grew up keeping house for my father, so I’m happy taking it on for Tim and me.”
Val nodded. One of the reasons she spent so much time out of the house was that it was always flooded with people. The servants, then Mama, and their brothers’ friends. Val didn’t like the crowds and she didn’t like the way it felt, dressed up in girl’s clothes as Mama insisted, with the young men all looking at her like dogs eyeing a biscuit.

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Nell Iris: Santa in Sweden

Today I have a post from my friend Nell Iris for you–and I need to apologise to both Nell and you, because it should have gone up yesterday and I forgot. Nell Iris, everyone…with The Santa Emergency.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, and happy random day in December for everyone else. A huge thanks to Ally who’s always so kind and generous and invites me when I have a new book to talk about.❤️ And I do have a new book to talk about: The Santa Emergency. It’s out today, and it’s perfect if you wanna buy yourself a little gift. And speaking of gifts, I’m here to talk about the Swedish Santa, and I’m kicking it off with a poem.

Midwinter’s nightly frost is hard,
Brightly the stars are beaming;
Fast asleep is the lonely yard,
All, at midnight, are dreaming.

Clear is the moon, and the snow-drifts shine,
Glistening white, on fir and pine,
Covers on rooflets making.
None but the Tomte is waking.

Poem by Swedish poet Viktor Rydberg, originally published in 1881, translated to English

Traditionally, the Swedish Santa, or tomten, wasn’t a jolly fella with a white beard who gave kids presents at Christmas. No, he was short and old and dressed in plain wadmal, gray clothing. He was the protector of the farms, he was rumored to be ill-tempered, and a sure way of angering him was to disrespect the farm or mistreat the animals. He was offended by rudeness and didn’t like changes, so it was important to follow traditions. When angered, his retributions ranged from small pranks all the way to maiming and killing the animals he was protecting.

But at the end of the 19th century, the image of tomten changed, thanks to the poem above, and the illustration that accompanied it. Swedish painter, artist and illustrator, Jenny Nyström got the assignment to illustrate the poem, and it led to a long and successful career. She’s often referred to as the mother of Santa in Sweden, and with pictures like these it’s not difficult to understand why.

These days, our Swedish Santa looks a lot like jolly old Santa Claus, but there are a few differences:

• Tomten lives in a nearby forest, not at the North Pole,
• he has a family,
• he doesn’t come down the chimney at night, but knocks on the front door,
• he delivers presents directly to the children on Christmas Eve before the children go to bed, just like the yule goat did;
• before he hands over presents he asks, Finns det några snälla barn här? (Are there any good children here?),
• he normally walks with his sack, but if he rides in a sleigh it is drawn by reindeer across the snow – they don’t fly,
• he likes a bowl of porridge, not a mince pie and a glass of sherry

(list borrowed from here)

Since we’re all grown-ups, we know Santa isn’t real, but since the presents are hand delivered in Sweden, we need someone to play Santa for us, wearing masks like these. When I was a kid, my beloved uncle always went to the store to “buy a newspaper” every time Santa arrived. When my daughter was little, her uncle went to visit his friend who lived next door to “say hi” and sadly it collided with Santa’s appearance every year. One year, the last year she believed in Santa, she confided to us before Christmas that she was pretty sure that Santa wasn’t real, that it was in fact her uncle. And since we were mean and devious parents, we asked someone else to be Santa that year, and our daughter was very confused. 😁

Kristian in The Santa Emergency was tasked last minute to host his family’s Christmas celebrations, and he pulled it together nicely. With one tiny little problem: he forgot to ask someone to come play Santa. So when it’s less than an hour before Santa is supposed to knock on his door, he rushes over to his new neighbor with a plea. I have a Santa emergency and I desperately need your help.

The Santa Emergency: "I don't even know how to be Santa!"
"Of course you do! Everyone knows how to be Santa. All you have to do is be jolly and say ho-ho-ho."

The Santa Emergency

I have a Santa emergency and I desperately need your help.

Sigge isn’t exactly a grinch when it comes to Christmas, but he’s not a fan of the holiday either. So when his new neighbor Kristian shows up in a panic, begging him to help by donning a Santa suit, Sigge’s gut reaction is to say no. But Kristian is cute and funny, rendering Sigge powerless against his heartfelt plea—especially after a promise of spending more time together—so he agrees.

The instant connection deepens as they share mulled wine and conversation as easy as breathing. But is it just holiday magic swirling in the air, or is it something real? Something that will last into the new year and beyond? 

M/M Contemporary / 13 816 words

Buy The Santa Emergency: JMS Books :: Amazon :: Books2Read

About Nell

Nell Iris is a romantic at heart who believes everyone deserves a happy ending. She’s a bonafide bookworm (learned to read long before she started school), wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without something to read (not even the ladies room), loves music (and singing along at the top of her voice but she’s no Celine Dion), and is a real Star Trek nerd (Make it so). She loves words, bullet journals, poetry, wine, coffee-flavored kisses, and fika (a Swedish cultural thing involving coffee and pastry!)

Nell believes passionately in equality for all regardless of race, gender or sexuality, and wants to make the world a better, less hateful, place.

Nell is a bisexual Swedish woman married to the love of her life, a proud mama of a grown daughter, and is approaching 50 faster than she’d like. She lives in the south of Sweden where she spends her days thinking up stories about people falling in love. After dreaming about being a writer for most of her life, she finally was in a place where she could pursue her dream and released her first book in 2017.

Nell Iris writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angsty, short over long, and quirky characters over alpha males.

Find Nell on social media:

Newsletter :: Webpage/blog :: Twitter :: Instagram :: Facebook Page :: Facebook Profile :: Goodreads :: Bookbub

Excerpt from The Santa Emergency

Cover: The Santa Emergency

“My mom broke her leg two weeks ago. We always do Christmas at her house, and she wanted us to this year, too, despite her injury. But she’s not the kind of person to sit idly by and let other people do all the work, especially since she doesn’t let anyone into her kitchen. She’d insist on business as usual, and she’d exhaust herself and risk re-injuring her leg. So my sister came up with the idea of Christmas at my house since I’m the only one in the family besides Mom living in a house and not an apartment.” He rolls his eyes. “Because Santa would surely strike us down with a mighty hammer if we celebrated Christmas in an apartment, right? I know I’m mixing my metaphors, but I’m trying to say that I’m sure the world wouldn’t end. I love my sister to death, but she has the weirdest ideas.”

He speaks with his whole body; he gestures with his hands and his face is lively and animated, and I can easily read every emotion as he experiences them, even after only being in his presence for a few minutes. All that makes him even more irresistible. In a society where everything is about hiding the truth behind a pretty surface, meeting someone open is refreshing.

“Anyway,” he says, “that gave me two whole weeks to unpack my stuff and plan a party. Dammit, Sigge, I’m a copywriter, not a party planner!”

Holy crap. He’s paraphrasing Star Trek, too? Is he perfect?

“But I did all right. The food, the decorations, everything is perfect. Or you know…everything except that I forgot to convince someone to come play Santa. When my sister found out, she lectured me in her scariest hissing voice until I was overcome with the urge to run away from my own house. She said I must not love my nieces and nephews since I forgot about a Santa. Her blame game is on point.” He grimaces.

“I’d say.”

“It’s Christmas Eve, and Santa always comes after Donald Duck is over. I can’t believe I forgot. The kids reach meltdown level if someone needs to go to the bathroom after the TV is turned off, so I have exactly—” he looks at his watch and gasps “—thirty-five minutes until my sister declares me the worst uncle ever. You must help me. Pretty please with sugar on top.”

His eyes are wide and pleading, his eyebrows slumping sadly, and I swear I can detect a hint of a tremble in his lower lip. I reach out and ease the cup out of his hands and pour more mulled wine into it before handing it back to him. “Drink this.”

He nods and tosses it back like it’s a shot, and I hope he doesn’t choke on the almonds or burns his tongue. “Thank you,” he says, then slumps back on the couch, the corners of his mouth drawn down, his lower lip pouting a little.

“What do you need from me?” I ask.

“I need you to be Santa.”

I blink. I really should’ve seen that one coming, but I didn’t. “Huh?”

“I need a Santa or the kiddos will be heartbroken. You’re my only hope.”

“I can’t be your only hope. What if I hadn’t been at home?”

“I would have been seriously fucked. Everyone I know is knee-deep in their own celebrations. I could probably convince my best friend Anton to do it because he’s too nice for his own good, but he’s a new dad and I don’t want to tear him away from his baby girl on her first Christmas.”

“I don’t even know how to be Santa.”

“Of course, you do. Everyone knows how to be Santa. All you have to do is be jolly, say ho-ho-ho, and ask if there are any good children in the house. Then you give presents to the kids whether they say yes or no. But if my sister says she deserves a gift, don’t believe her. She doesn’t. Not after the lecture she gave me.”

Of course, I know how a Santa behaves. In theory. There was no Santa when I was a kid, rarely any presents, so all encounters I’ve had with him come from TV and movies. I know it’s not like he’s asking me to do an in-depth interpretation of a complex character, but my instinct is to say no. I have little experience with kids, I’m awkward around people, and I don’t do Christmas.

“Oh.” He sits up straight. “Are you…religious? I mean…did I offend your religious beliefs with my request? If so, I’m sorry; I didn’t think before barging into your home. I mean, you haven’t decorated, and—”

“Kristian, please.”

He snaps his mouth shut and looks at me with his eyes full of concern.

“I’m not religious. That’s not why I’m hesitating.” It’s because you’re cute and I don’t want to look like a fool in front of you, my brain adds, but luckily I’m able to stop the words from spilling out of my mouth.

“Whew.” He relaxes his stiff posture “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with my new neighbors. And you’re really cute.” His eyes widen and he sucks his lips into his mouth as though he’s trying to stuff back the words from whence they came.

Cute? He thinks I’m cute? No one’s ever called me cute before. Scary or intimidating, yes. Even hot. But not cute. “Thank you,” I say, unable to fight a smile taking over my face.

“Thank you?”

“Yes. I’m…uh…flattered you think so.” Flattered is an understatement, but I don’t want to tell him about the tickle in my belly caused by his words.

“Flattered?”

I nod.

“Okay.” He looks at me from under fluttering eyelashes, a content smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Okay.”

A quick glance at his chunky watch snaps his focus back to where it belongs. “So…Santa?”

Buy The Santa Emergency: JMS Books :: Amazon :: Books2Read

Jackson Marsh: Researching and Portraying a Deaf Character in Victorian Fiction

This week we welcome Jackson Marsh to talk about his lead character in the Larkspur Mysteries. Welcome, Jackson! Take it away…

Hi, I’m Jackson Marsh, author of the 11-part Clearwater Mystery series set between the years 1888 and 1890. I am now writing the follow-on series, the Larkspur Mysteries, and one of my main characters is deaf. I’m here to tell you why I chose to write a deaf lead character, what research I did to help create him, and how I write him into the romantic, MM mysteries.

Joe Tanner, drawn by Dalston

Why Write a Lead Character who is Deaf?

My interest in the deaf world began several years ago when I worked as the composer for a deaf/hearing children’s theatre company. Recently, I was watching ‘The Amazing Race’ and found myself fascinated by the team of Luke Adams and his mother, Marj O’Donnell. Seeing Luke, who is deaf, compete in the race and work his way through triumphs and frustrations is what (and who) gave me the idea to create Joe Tanner, my 19-year-old, deaf-from-birth character in the Larkspur Series. I’ve since written to Luke and thanked him for his inspiration—it was the first time I had ever written fan mail.

Most stories I had read that featured a deaf character had him/her portrayed as a victim. Someone to be helped by others, someone to be pitied, and, particularly in historical fiction, someone who was stupid. My mission was to reverse those misconceptions, and create a young, gay, deaf man who would not only be heroic but would also become educated. Joe’s story starts with an abusive father, takes him to seven years in a workhouse, and on to become one of the Clearwater men at the Larkspur Academy. It is a story of survival through MM love.

What Research was Involved?

For Joe’s initial story, ‘Guardians of the Poor’, I had two main areas to research. Firstly, and easiest, was the history of the Hackney Workhouse in London, and life in workhouses in the late 19th century. Books, online research, the National Newspaper Archives… I was able to use my usual resources, as well as my memory, as I had visited the actual buildings many years ago when I lived nearby.

Secondly, more challenging but infinitely more practical, was learning sign language. I researched the history of British Sign Language (BSL) as best as I could and used that to inform Joe’s wider world. Joe is a deaf character who speaks, but because he’s never heard words, he can only imitate lip movements, and that’s why people think he is, in Victorian wordage, an imbecile. However, he signs, and so that I could understand what that entails, I took a course in basic BSL. My husband joined me, and now we can communicate in sign if we choose to. It’s great fun talking about people without them knowing what you’re signing. Seriously, though, it gave me a massive insight into how to write Joe’s thought process.

How do I Write a Deaf Character?

It’s not only Joe’s thought process that I needed to consider when writing ‘Guardians of the Poor’ and the books that follow. Joe is the hero in book two of the series, ‘Keepers of the Past’, and as half of the narrative is from his point of view, I had to be in his head for much of the time. Sign language is constructed differently to spoken languages, and if I wrote purely as Joe would have thought and signed, it would be hard to read. For example, his dialogue would be, ‘You me go London when? Before me London rubbish, now, so-so.’ (When are we going to London? I used to hate the place, but now, it’s alright.) 

Another consideration was understanding how Joe would have thought. When hearing people think or read, we hear the words in our head, but what if you’ve never heard words? What then? Joe, like many deaf-from-birth people, thinks visually. Again, I had to cheat to a certain extent, because otherwise the text would be impossible to read. It would be a jumble of memories and images that would only make sense to Joe.

More importantly, behaviour was a consideration, and for that, I remembered Luke’s frustrations on The Amazing Race, his, to us, over reactions, his use of body language for emphasis, other people’s reactions, and his heroism through daily adversity. All those trains have informed the character of Joe Tanner.

One day, I’d love to speak, sorry, sign with Luke, and give him a copy of the books, as a thank you for the inspiration. He’s become a bit of a hero of mine, and Joe can be yours if you follow the Larkspur Mystery Series.

The Larkspur Mysteries : The Clearwater Mysteries

Guardians of the Poor: The Larkspur Mysteries Book 1

The greatest gift one man may give another is his trust.”

Barbary Fleet, 1890.

Standing stones, messages written in symbols, and the language of the deaf. It falls to Lord Clearwater to unlock the mystery of Dalston Blaze and his deaf friend, Joe Tanner, two young men arrested for committing ‘unnatural offences’ at the Hackney workhouse.

Dalston hopes for a prison sentence. It’s the only way to save his life. Instead, he is bailed to the Larkspur Academy on Lord Clearwater’s Cornish estate, where there is only one rule: honesty above all else. For Dalston, this means confronting his past, learning to trust, and admitting his secrets. Joe is the key, but Joe is missing, and his location is locked deep inside a memory seen in sign language, and clouded by eighteen years of workhouse life.

If Dalston remains silent, the immoral workhouse master and his sadistic schoolteacher will continue to inflict pain and suffering on all inmates of the Hackney workhouse. If he tells the truth, he and Joe will die.

The Guardians of the Poor is a combination of mystery, adventure and male romance, set in 1890. It draws on first-hand accounts of workhouse life at the time, and is the first of a new series of mysteries set in the Clearwater world.

The Larkspur Mysteries

Beginning in 1890, The Larkspur Mysteries follow on from The Clearwater Mysteries series of 11 novels. It’s not necessary to have read the Clearwater books before you embark on the Larkspur series. However, if you enjoy mystery, romance, adventure and a mix of historical fact and fiction, then begin the journey with ‘Deviant Desire.’ (Or the non-mystery prequel, ‘Banyak & Fecks.’)

Lord Clearwater has created a unique academy for disadvantaged young men. The Larkspur Academy is, ‘A non-academic institution with the aim to provide deserving men the opportunity to expand talent, horizons and knowledge for the betterment of the underprivileged and general society.’ It’s not a school. There are no lessons, no teachers, no schoolboys and no rules. The series exists in the established Clearwater world of the late 1800’s where homosexuality is a crime everywhere but on Clearwater’s country estate in Cornwall.

The series is ongoing. Each story involves male bonding, bromance, friendship and love. Mystery, adventure and a little comedy play their parts, and every story is inspired by true events from the past.

Buy The Guardians of the Poor

About Jackson

Jackson Marsh was born in 2017 as the pen name for James Collins so I could publish my new gay fiction independently from my other writing work.

I was born on the south coast of England during a blizzard in 1963, but now like to warm thing up with MM romance novels, gay mysteries and some occasional erotica. In 2007 I was awarded an EGPA award for my erotic short stories, and I have won three Best Screenplay awards for my film scripts. I am a diverse writer with thrillers, comedies and horror stories under my James belt, and now romance and mystery under my Jackson belt.

Although I spend most of my time researching and writing, I do have other interests. It’s a strange collection of playing the piano, building classic horror model kits and, when I can, travel. Past interests, which I still follow but no longer pursue so much, include rock climbing, musical theatre and genealogy. That’s probably why my books tend to involve characters who are musicians, writers, mystery-solvers and rock climbers; there’s a bit of me in each one of them.

I live on a Greek island with my husband, and we have been here since 2002.

You can keep up to date with my monthly newsletter and be the first to know about my publications. The isn’t one of those newsletters that simply advertise other people’s books for sale, it’s more personal than that, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Jackson Marsh Amazon : Jackson Marsh website : Jackson Marsh Facebook

Trans people in history

This morning I want to talk a little bit about trans people in history. Transgender is a word that can only be traced back to 1974, but that didn’t mean trans people didn’t exist before that date! Walter, one of the main characters in The Quid Pro Quo is transgender—he’s caused me all sorts of plot issues, but has sent me off to do lots of really interesting reading, which I’m delighted to share here!

One of the things that gender studies academics all agree about is that it’s almost impossible to know how people in the past that we now see as trans would have seen themselves. The records are very sparse, often sensationalised and are usually other people’s view of the person rather than their own. Who wanted to put that sort of thing down in writing when it would get you prosecuted or put in a mental hospital? So it’s hard to tell whether past figures were transgender; or whether they were passing as a man or woman in order to access spaces and privilege they would be otherwise denied. This is particularly true of people who were assigned female at birth and lived the bulk of their lives as men.

The most famous of these cases is Dr James Barry, who after his death in the mid-nineteenth century was revealed to be AFAB (assigned female at birth). I won’t write much about him here because this is the article I would write and Rebecca Ortenberg has already done it better than I would. Suffice to say that after he began his medical education at Edinburgh, Barry never presented or referred to himself as female again. He was only discovered to be AFAB after the person laying his body out for burial spoke about him. In recent years he’s been absorbed by the ‘plucky girl breaking the glass ceiling by putting on breeches’ narrative, which I personally feel is wrong.

This article at the British Library about Transgender Identities in the Past is fascinating. It focuses on two people, Eliza Edwards, who on her death in 1833 was discovered to be AMAB. And in 1901, someone we’d now understand to be a trans man who at the age of sixty and after several marriages and a career as a cook on P&O liners was revealed to be AFAB. The newspaper article calls them by a woman’s name. It completely erases the life they lived. The article has audio clips of a 2018 discussion between E-J Scott, curator of the Museum of Transology; Dr Jay Stewart, the chief executive of Gendered Intelligence, and Annie Brown, an activist, artist and GI youth worker. It’s worth your time.

In The Flowers of Time, my story set in the late eighteenth century, Jones the non-binary character eventually decides to present as masculine because it makes their life with Edie easier. They fudge the record, more or less blackmail close family into accepting them and that’s that. However, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that as time went on, communication became quicker and easier and records of births and marriages became more common it became much more difficult to pass. British army records mention Phoebe Hassel, who was discharged in 1817 when she was flogged and discovered to be a man (bottom of page seven, you have to register, but it’s free). We don’t know whether she was a passing woman for financial or social reasons or whether she was what we’d understand today as trans. Her male name is not mentioned. However, she must have passed well enough or had enough support by her peers to have concealed her natal gender for some years.

However, The Quid Pro Quo is set a hundred and fifty years later than Phoebe’s flogging and The Flowers of Time. By the time Walter joined up in 1898, there were medicals for army recruits. This was such a sticking point for me that I bottled it and I honestly tried to write the book with him as cis. However, he just wouldn’t play…he’d been trans in my head as I was writing The Fog of War, right back as far the planning stage of the trilogy. But when I came to write it, I couldn’t make the story work with him as trans because of the army regulations; and I couldn’t make the story work with him as cis because he’s not cis.

I threw the question to some of my lovely friends at the Quiltbag Historicals facebook group (join us, we’re cool!) and they immediately began working out ways I could fudge the story. So Walter begins his army career as his twin brother and has a little help from the people around him to keep his origins concealed. And I reassured myself that if people are prepared to suspend disbelief about the paranormal aspects of my stories then they can allow me this tiny (enormous) stretch of possibility to get it off the ground!

I love Walter. He’s so very pragmatic about his life and his place in the universe. He’s just getting on and doing his thing. I wanted him to have a happy ending so badly all the time I was writing The Fog of War and I was very pleased to be able to give him one here in The Quid Pro Quo.

I like to think of my stories as realistically historical first and paranormal second. My characters are just getting on living their lives—which have greater or lesser levels of complexity—and the paranormal comes and whacks them round the back of the head with half a brick in a sock. I try and make the history as accurate and the paranormal as twisted as I can! I think I’ve done Walter justice, as he’s one of my favourite people. I hope you like him too.

Lastly, here is a brilliant collection of books about trans history and trans issues, curated by Christine Burns and available from independent bookshops.

The Quid Pro Quo

Cover: The Quid Pro Quo

Village nurse Walter Kennett is content with his makeshift found-family in tiny Bradfield. However one midsummer morning a body is found floating in the village duck pond, dead by magical means.

Detective Simon Frost arrives in Bradfield to investigate a inexplicable murder. The evidence seems to point to Lucille Hall-Bridges, who lives with doctor Sylvia Marks and nurse Walter Kennett at Courtfield House. Simon isn’t happy—he doesn’t believe Lucy is a murderer but  he’s sure the three of them are hiding something. In the meantime, the draw he feels toward Walter takes him by surprise.

Walter is in a dilemma, concealing Sylvia and Lucy’s relationship and not knowing how much to tell Frost about the paranormal possibilities of the murder. He isn’t interested in going to bed with anyone—he’s got a complicated life and has to know someone really well before he falls between the sheets. He’s taken aback by his own attraction to Detective Frost and angry when Frost appears to twist the spark between them to something transactional in nature.

Will Walter be satisfied to stay on the periphery of Lucy and Sylvia’s love affair, a welcome friend but never quite included? Or is it time for him to strike out and embark on  a relationship of his own?

Add The Quid Pro Quo on Goodreads

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British Accents now and then

One of the things I love about working with Callum Hale on my audiobooks is his ability to throw himself into pretty much any British accent and bring the character to life. To my British ear each of the people I’ve created sound exactly as I’ve envisaged them as he brings them off the page.

Lost in Time audio cover

I asked him to make Rob, from Inheritance of Shadows ‘less ooh-arr’ and he toned the accent down so to me at least, Rob doesn’t sound so much like a heavy-handed son of the Somerset soil. And I wanted Will Grant in the 1920s London Trilogy to sound more like Lord Peter Wimsey. Callum obliged, perfectly. (These are my two favourite of all my characters, ever, incidentally).

The question I’m always asking myself about my writing though, is how right can I get it? I want the history in my books to be accurate, unless I’m deliberately twisting the universe out of true with magic. I think this is the same question historians have to ask themselves about looking at anything in the past. We are both looking at things through our own rose-tinted spectacles, coloured with our own experiences and social expectations. My characters in these books grew up in Victorian England. What did they really think about the Empire? What did they talk about in the pub? What did they really sound like? How did they really smell? We’re fudging it, the whole lot. Historians and archaeologists because of lack of data. And writers because of lack of data and because we don’t want our main characters to be unsympathetic to modern audiences.

Anyway…during one or other of my late-night sessions randomly browsing the web, I came across this programme about Edwardian accents. A regional English language specialist in Germany during the First World War, a real-life Professor Higgins, suddenly realised he had a huge pool of untapped research material in the German army’s British prisoners of war. In this documentary you can actually listen to their voices.

Inheritance of Shadows audio cover

I was very interested in how the modern specialists in the programme say the regional accents of the past are broader in the recordings than they are now. It’s as if the rising tide of London-speak has swept the broad vowels of the regional accents back from the centre of the country, into the more remote west of England. So although to me, Rob sounds about right, a farm labourer from Somerset who’s self-educated and likes to read, to his contemporaries he’d probably have sounded out of place. You can listen to Callum’s reading of him here, in the first chapter of Inheritance of Shadows.

I think, listening to those long-ago voices in the programme, it’s important to remember these men were prisoners. That’s one of the filters we mustn’t discard. Were they doing this work in the language lab out of the kindness of their hearts? Because they were bored and wanted an occupation? Because they were threatened in to it? Because they were offered extra rations or privileges? Are these their actual accents? Or are they performative, a joke on the professor? They’re immensely touching, whatever their origin and I hope you enjoy it.

You can buy the 1920s London audiobooks at Authors Direct.

Lost in Time, Shadows on the Border, The Hunted and the Hind by A. L. Lester. Narrated by Callum Hale.