queeromance – Page 2 – A. L. Lester

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.

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 19^th 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

Surfacing Again: Otters

Surfacing Again came about because I essentially decided I wanted to write a story with otters, for no other reason than otters; so I went looking for myths I might be able to adapt. There are quite a few otter-myths in the UK—I liked the Otter Kings of Scotland very much and might see if I can write something longer about them at some point. But I was also very drawn to St Cuthbert and his helpful otters on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

As I wrote in my previous post, Lindisfarne is a small island off the North East coast of Northumbria in England, and the first, wooden, monastery was built there by monks from Iona (in Scotland) under St Aidan in 635AD. St Cuthbert was the Bishop of Lindisfarne from 685AD until he died in 687AD, but he seems to have been ubiquitous to the area for a couple of decades before that. Bede wrote a ‘Life of St Cuthbert’ in the early years of the eighth century and that’s where the otters come in.

“…[St Cuthbert] went down to the sea, which flows beneath, and going into it, until the water reached his neck and arms, spent the night in praising God. When the dawn of day approached, he came out of the water, and, falling on his knees, began to pray again. Whilst he was doing this, two quadrupeds, called otters, came up from the sea, and, lying down before him on the sand, breathed upon his feet, and wiped them with their hair after which, having received his blessing, they returned to their native element.”

It all sounds extremely unlikely, as Lin comments in Surfacing Again…however, it also sounds extremely charming and I couldn’t not use it.

The UK’s species of otter is Lutra Lutra, the Eurasian otter. We don’t have sea-otters, we just have some colonies of otters that like to hang out by the sea. They’re part of the mustelid family, which also includes stoats, weasels, polecats, ferrets and mink…they’re essentially enormous aquatic weasels.

They live in family groups and stay with their parents until they’re fourteen or fifteen months old. Population is gradually increasing again in the UK where they have been very sparse in the last few decades due to river pollution. You can read more about them and their habitats at the UK Wild Otter Trust and there’s a bit more about Coastal Otters in Scotland on the Forestry and Land Scotland website.

Here are some Asiatic Short-Clawed otters from New Zealand, making their characteristic chirping noise:

Surfacing Again: A short contemporary lesbian romance

Melinda is staying on Lindisfarne for a Christmas break with her old friend when an unexpected argument leaves her alone for the holiday.

It’s the first Christmas since her mother died and the island’s peace and wild tranquillity bring balm to her wounded heart. Two chance meetings, first with a pair of wary otters and then with cafe-owner Rowan, bring her genuine joy.

Will her tentative relationship with Rowan survive the end of her holiday and the turning of the year?

A short sapphic Christmas story. With otters.

BUY SURFACING AGAIN

And finally, you may have realised my title is taken from the Seamus Heaney poem The Otter.

Surfacing Again: Lindisfarne

Surfacing Again came out yesterday and I thought today I’d give you some back ground about it’s setting, the ‘Holy Island’ of Lindisfarne, just off the north-east coast of England.

Map of northern Britain in the post-Roman period.

It’s a tidal island, accessible twice a day during low tide. These days there’s a causeway to drive across, but in days gone by you had to walk across the sands to reach it, along the ‘pilgrim way’. The path is marked by large stakes driven in to the sands and you can still do it today reasonably easily, so long as you don’t mind a bit of paddling.

The first monastery there was founded in 635AD by St Aidan as a daughter-house of Iona. That monastery was probably where the parish church stands today, but was made of wood, so no visible trace remains. It’s this monastery that was responsible for the beautiful Lindisfarne Gospels and where St Cuthbert was Bishop in the 680s. After his death it became a place of pilgrimage. Most of what we know about St Cuthbert comes from his ‘Life’, written by Bede, a monk at the monastery of Jarrow in the early ninth century. You can read a translation of his Life of St Cuthbert here.

The monastery was devastated by a Viking attack in June 793. There was a huge sense of disbelief across the continent that one of the largest and holiest foundation in European Christendom could be destroyed rather than protected by its patron saint. Subsequent attacks finally drove the monks out to Northam on the mainland in the 830s and in 875 they formally abandoned the island and eventually settled in the old Roman fort of Chester-le-Street seven years later. St Cuthbert’s remains ended up at Durham, where they became a good money-spinner for the abbey there.

In the meantime, there’s evidence from gravestones on the island that a small Christian community remained on Lindisfarne; but the priory wasn’t rebuilt until after the Norman conquest of 1066 as a daughter-house of Durham. That’s the ruins that are visible today. The monks were turned out and the priory abandoned during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century. You can read more about the history of the priory here. With annotations!

The castle, at the opposite end of the island to the priory, began life as a fort in the mid-1500s with stone robbed from the abandoned priory. At that time England was still very much threatened by Scotland. However when Elizabeth 1 died in 1603, the two countries became ruled by the same monarch and the threat disappeared.

By 1900, the fort was in ruins. It was bought by Edward Hudson, who employed Edward Lutyens to turn it into a little castle, where the nobility of the day came to socialise. He also employed Gertrude Jekyll to create a walled garden for him.

You can visit Lindisfarne for the day or you can book accommodation. If you can’t manage that, I recommend the magic of Google Street View. You can visit the priory ruins, walk along the beach where Lin meets her otters, see the ruins of St Cuthbert’s monastic cell on the additional tiny, tiny island and even walk across the sands on the Pilgrim Path.

And as a final note, I was at Ofelia’s blog yesterday with the ginger biscuit recipe that Rowan uses in her café. Find it here!

Read on for more about Surfacing Again and an excerpt.

Surfacing Again: A short contemporary lesbian romance

Melinda is staying on Lindisfarne for a Christmas break with her old friend when an unexpected argument leaves her alone for the holiday.

Will her tentative relationship with Rowan survive the end of her holiday and the turning of the year?

A short sapphic Christmas story. With otters.

Buy Surfacing again

Chapter 2: Christmas Eve

“You look like you could do with a hot drink. Your lips are blue,” the small woman wrapped in the huge green apron said. She was sweeping the windswept grey pavement outside the little cafe on the corner in the village as Melinda peered through the window at the menu, wondering whether they were open.
“Are you serving?” she asked.
The woman was about her own age, with a geometric blonde haircut and an impish expression as she looked at Lin over her broom.
“I’m not actually open for another couple of hours,” she said, smiling and leaning the broom against the wall. “But come inside while I set up. You must be frozen. It’s a bitter wind.”
Melinda smiled at her. “Why are you bothering to brush the pavement then?” she asked.
The other woman smiled again. “Habit,” she said. “It’s habit. I like my routines. Come on, come in. I’ve lit the log burner already, so it’s toasty inside.”
There were a couple of sofas set at angles in front of the log burner and a few small tables squeezed in around them. It really was a tiny cafe, probably converted from someone’s front room that had been knocked through into the room behind at some time in the past.
“Here,” her saviour said. “Sit down, take your coat off. “What would you like to drink? I’ve got…well, anything really. Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?”
“Tea would be wonderful, actually,” Lin said. “I haven’t had any yet this morning. I got up early to watch the sunrise.” She was determined to make the most of her stay on the island of Lindisfarne, despite the drama of the last couple of days.
She sighed.
The other woman flashed her another grin before she could get too lost in her thoughts. “It was beautiful this morning,” she said. “I’m Rowan,” she said in a friendly fashion, going behind the counter and putting a kettle on.
“I’m Lin,” Melinda said. “Is this your place?” She hunched forward and stretched out her frosty hands to the fire.
“Yes. Me and my girlfriend started it a couple of years ago, but it’s just me now.” She shot Lin a sidelong glance.
Melinda smiled back. “It’s lovely,” she said. “Very cosy.”
“It’s tiny, but it works. I live upstairs.” She nodded toward the back of the cafe where there was a closed door beside the one that led out to the kitchen, presumably leading to some stairs. “We only do drinks and cakes, and soup and sandwiches and breakfast rolls; a very limited menu. But it’s all people need if they’ve come over to the island for the day. No-one wants to waste time with a full sit-down lunch.”
She put a tray with a pot of tea, a jug of milk, and two mugs down on the low table between the sofas, sinking into the one opposite Lin.
Lin nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. It’s quieter at this time of year, though?”
“Yes, very much so. Although it can get busy now for a bit, around Christmas. And people stay in the self-catering properties and guest houses all year round, obviously. If I didn’t need the income to live, I’d say I prefer it when it’s quieter.” She said that with an open smile. “Present company excepted, of course!”
She leaned forward and poured them each a cup of tea. She seemed to have all the time in the world to chat to a random stranger she’d rescued from the freezing morning.

Buy Surfacing Again

Interview: J. R. Hart

Today I’d like to welcome J. R. Hart to the blog, to talk about Miss Claus, their latest release. It has the dubious distinction of being the book that most recently made me cry buckets! It’s a lovely story and the trans rep is excellent.

So, take it away, JR. Welcome! Why did you decide to pop in today?

Mostly, I’m excited to share more about my upcoming book, Miss Claus. It’s the first time I’ve really deviated from the books I’m typically known for (m/m romance) to work in more non-romance and really speak from the heart. While all of my characters have pieces of me and my frame of reference worked in, Kris’s view of her transgender identity, her progress through a relationship where she’s manipulated and gaslit quite a bit, and her love/hate relationship with local politics, all while reaching for a huge goal? She’s truly a girl after my own heart and I feel connected to her in many ways, which makes me want to talk more about her story!

What started you writing?

Writing has been a complicated journey. As an early reader, I’ve always been fascinated by stories, and when I was in second grade, our teacher held a storywriting contest. The winner would get a little hardbound copy of their story printed by the school. I won! I was hooked on the praise for my storytelling and knew writing would be a huge part of my life. But then I hit high school and an independent study on creative writing. The librarian at the school, who had recently self-published a book of her own, told me very strongly that she saw no future in writing for me, and that even if I enjoyed writing, I’d never be worthy of publication. That crushing blow led to me walking away from fiction writing for ten years. Some of my jobs involved writing to some degree or another – at one time I won a relatively popular food and family blog – but I wouldn’t touch fiction. Eventually, I joined a fandom, but I promised myself I wouldn’t go near writing fanfiction. I could admire from afar. That lasted approximately three days. Then I started what became a 100,000 word fanfiction. Within a year I’d written a million words, and when I started realizing that I exclusively wrote AUs far removed from the source material, I decided that since I preferred creating my own worlds, maybe I’d just dip out of fandom all together and attempt my own novel. I haven’t looked back!

Where do you write?

I love the small desk in my bedroom since it has a wonderful view of my backyard. It truly sparks a lot of inspiration in every season of the year… except when I get distracted by the squirrels chasing each other outside! When I need a change of scenery, though, I’m definitely one to head to the kitchen table or the coffee shop. I’ll write anywhere, though. I even wrote part of Miss Claus inside a Chuck E. Cheese!

What do you like to read?

I love to shake up my reading with plenty of genres and authors, but I have to say that I’m a sucker for anything with a major trope in it. Fake dating? Sign me up. Only one bed? Sold. Enemies to lovers? Oh gosh, I’m in. The tropier the better, which means I find myself in the romance section pretty often!

What are the three books you’d take to a desert island? Why would you choose them?

This is a really hard one. Only three? I’d have to say right now I’d take my major comfort reads. First up would be The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling because it genuinely made me laugh out loud so often, while also allowing me plenty of room to tear up. Second, I’d need to go with Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler. Adler is one of my auto-buy authors where I can’t help but preorder the instant something’s announced. And finally, I’d have to go with my current absolute favorite, at least once it’s released. I was lucky enough to read an ARC of an upcoming novella from Skye Kilaen’s Love at Knockdown series. I loved the first book in the series, but book two had me hooked from page one.

Writing is an intrinsically solo occupation. Do you belong to any groups or associations, either online or in the ‘real’ world? How does that work for you?

Yes! Connecting with fellow authors is a huge part of writing for me. Currently, I’m working on a novella as part of an upcoming multi-author series with some authors I really admire — Skye Kilaen, Roz Alexander, and Karmen Lee are all on board, among others. Another place I’ve really found a connection is in a small discord a writer friend of mine created. Touching base with those friends regularly has been a big motivator! We even sometimes watch television shows together. I also write for a couple of small magazines. Patch Magazine is an independent gaming magazine, and all of us who write for it have a very active group chat every time something new and exciting is released in the indie gaming world.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

When I’m not writing, I’m usually doing something with my hands. I dabble in cross stitch, miniatures at 1:24 scale, love LEGO, and work on an antique needle craft from the 1970s called Bargello. I do have ADHD, which means I tend to go from one intense hyperfixation to another when it comes to my hobbies. Alternately, one of my earliest special interests (I’m also autistic) was the Titanic, so anytime a new article or documentary comes out about it, I essentially stop everything else to watch or read about it.

Tell me a little bit about your most recent release. What gave you the idea for it? How long did it take to write? What did you enjoy about writing it? What did you hate?

So many things about Miss Claus pull from my own experiences. I think I took my first political petition around town when I was 9 years old, and I’ve always been heavily invested in politics, especially on a small-town city council level. I’ve also long been invested in those awesome scenes from movies like Legally Blonde’s “you were in the shower?” perm courtroom scene, where the lead everyone underestimates manages to really speak eloquently and win everyone over to her side. Scenes like that have long inspired me to want to write a character I felt could really deliver that girl power moment. But underneath it all, Miss Claus is a trans story told from a trans lens, and a story about a fat person told from a fat person’s lens, and a story about parenting told from a parent’s lens.

Miss Claus took me just under a month when it came to producing a first draft. It definitely took more than a couple of sessions at the coffee shop trying to spill 10,000 words at a time onto the page. The editing process definitely took longer, as it often does. I will say, it definitely did a number on my search history, because I read article after article about the history of women as Santa. Of course, many of the stories came from my own experience with small-town politics, some directly ripped from my local City Council’s proceedings, but reframed from a North Pole lens with some massive edits. That was both challenging and exciting.

Miss Claus

Kris Claus has spent her entire life preparing to become the next Santa Claus. After all, she’s Santa’s daughter, so she’s certain to be next in line for the title. She’s gotten the degrees, served as his assistant… nothing can stop her. Well, nothing except her lawyer ex, who is trying to sneak his way into the title by bringing up an archaic gender law that says women can’t be Santa.

Steeped in small-town politics and a rivalry for the ages, Kris won’t stop until she’s gotten what she’s fought for her whole life, but she won’t give up who she really is — a proud woman — to reach her dreams. When a letter from a transgender girl down South reminds her of herself as a child, Kris knows exactly what’s at stake, not just for her own dreams, but for the dreams of girls everywhere.

Miss Claus is available at NineStar Press : Kindle and Paperback : Other eBook links

Find J. R. Hart

Website : Goodreads : Twitter : Instagram : TikTok

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

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?

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