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Tag: Tom Williams

Opening Lines: Dark Magic by Tom Williams

By

On October 31, 2019

In Blog, crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Jenny Kane, Opening Lines Blog, thriller

This week’s Opening Lines is just perfect for Halloween.
Please welcome Tom Williams, with the first 500 words of his latest novella, Dark Magic.
Over to you Tom…
Here’s a Halloween treat – the first 500 words of my novella, Dark Magic. It’s a big change from the historical fiction I usually write. I’m not sure quite how to describe it. It’s part thriller, part supernatural horror story (don’t worry, it’s not scary), and part (I hope) comedy. It grew out of an evening spent with a bunch of magicians and a few drinks and it just sort of grew by itself. It’s being published today, as Halloween seems a particularly appropriate launch date. I hope you love it.
Blurb
Two magic shows: the Maestros of Magic touring the country, playing provincial theatres; the Carnival of Conjurors successful in the West End. When the Maestros learn that the Conjurors are using real magic – Black Magic – to do their tricks they decide that they must use their own, distinctly unmagical, stage skills to stop them. Soon people are dying on stage – but can the Maestros really beat a team that has the devil on their side?
FIRST 500 WORDS
“Baby’s blood?”

“That’s what it says. Mix in baby’s blood and use that to mark the pentagram.”

There were six of them, and Claudia looked from face to face waiting for someone to say that this was a ridiculous idea. She could, she supposed, have said it herself, but it was not as if anybody would have listened. Nobody ever listens to the magician’s beautiful assistant.

In fairness, they didn’t exactly rush to agree with the plan either. When Jerry spoke, he had the decency to sound embarrassed.

“Does it have to be a human baby?”

Jerry’s role in their conjuring show was to do the tricks that appealed mainly to children. It brought in family audiences, but the other magicians secretly – or, to be honest, not that secretly – despised him. Still, Claudia thought that one or two might have taken his side here, but Daniel didn’t allow time for any of them to join Jerry in questioning his plan.

“It’s true that it doesn’t specify human.” Daniel smiled. It was an unconvincing smile and Claudia thought he did it mainly to show off his teeth. They were quite startlingly white, though marred, in her opinion, by rather over-developed canines. “But human seems fairly clear from the context.”

“Well, could we try it with something else first?”

Daniel’s smile vanished. It was as if someone had flipped a switch. Where there had been a big white smile, all you noticed now was a very square jaw and full, but rather sulky, lips. And, if you raised your eyes to his, something about his irises that made you look away again very quickly.

“It’s hardly as if the other ingredients were easily come by. We don’t want to mess it up and have to do it again.”

They were quiet at that. Claudia had the impression that they were all thinking of different things. She reckoned they would say the worst was the virgin’s tears. Despite all the tired old jokes, finding a virgin had been the easy bit. It was keeping her crying for long enough to collect a vial of tears that had been wearing on their nerves.

After a pause, long enough for all of them to remember details they would rather have forgotten, Daniel spoke again.

“Baby’s blood, then.”

There was an uncomfortable nodding of heads.

“How much blood are we talking about?” That was Tor – almost certainly not his real name but there was something about the way he looked at you if you questioned him which discouraged you from asking twice. He was an illusionist, constantly fretting about the mechanical details of his act. “And what about clotting? Are we going to add an anti-clotting agent?” Claudia remembered an illusion that involved an arm being cut off. Tor had been dissatisfied with the stage blood most magicians used and had experimented with various concoctions of his own. Claudia had never enquired as to what they were, but one had clotted and spoiled the act and…

***

Links
Bio
TOM WILLIAMS has published six books of historical fiction but this is his first contemporary story and his first novella (33,000 words). He has spent far too much time hanging round with magicians.

***
Many thanks Tom.
Happy reading everyone,
Jenny x

Dead trees and Xmas gifts

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On December 10, 2018

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction, history, Jennifer Ash

Today I’m welcoming historical fiction novelist, Tom Williams, back to my site with a pre-Christmas message!

Over to you Tom…

Yet again, the news is telling us that paper books are very much here to stay. Honestly, they never went away and, equally honestly, e-book’s have become well established and they’re not going to go away either. It’s a non-story, presumably raising its head particularly at this time of year because with Christmas coming we remember that people still buy books as gifts.

It’s weird, this idea that e-books versus paper is like one of the great divides of human-kind, like Mods vs Rockers, Mac vs PC, Corrie vs East-Enders.

I’m a huge e-book fan. I read mainly on an iPad. It lets me carry lots of books with me. It allows me to highlight and make notes on them. (I know some people do that on paper, but I was brought up to see that as vandalism and I still feel uncomfortable with it.) I don’t lose my place. And it’s massively cheaper and easier to get new books. (Given the amount of 19th century reading I do, it’s often the only remotely realistic way to get hold of obscure out-of-print Victorian volumes.) So am I a paper-hating child of new technology? Hardly.

This is the biggest bookcase in the house, but far from the only one.

Practically every room in the house has at least some books propped up in it somewhere (not the bathroom – the steam makes the paper soggy). Paper books are attractive. It’s easier, sometimes, to browse a shelf full of books than to find something useful in an e-library. E-books are easier to search when you know what you want, but they can be frustrating when you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for. Paper books allow more opportunities for serendipitous discoveries. The original inspiration for Cawnpore was a book I picked up browsing through someone else’s (paper) library, stuck indoors on a wet day. If I’d had an e-reader with me, I’d probably never have come across it.

Bookshops can be very frustrating in their selection of stock. (Try asking for one of my books – or pretty well anything published by a smaller press – at Waterstones and prepare to be told that they can’t get it for you.) But the shelves of temptingly displayed volumes can draw you to books you would never otherwise have discovered.

Paper books can be lent to friends or passed on when they’re finished with. They do, indeed, furnish a room. Old textbooks remind us of our student years, an autographed volume of a special meeting. Most of all, as ‘Super Thursday’ reminds us, paper books can be gifted in a way that e-books cannot. A paper book says that you want to share something you have enjoyed, or that you have thought about the interests and enthusiasms of your friend and sought out a book that matches them. The transfer of digital data from computer to computer does not, for some reason, carry the emotional resonance of the gift of a physical book.

All my books are available in paperback as well as on Kindle. Most good publishers try to produce paper copies, if only for their authors to display proudly on their bookcases. (Second shelf down on the extreme right if you’re checking the photo.) All authors I have ever met want to see their words on paper. It’s odd because, in this digital age, the paperback is probably the first time I’ve seen my book printed out in its entirety. Still, there they are. And you can buy them, and give them to your friends.

Pay attention to that last bit. Buy one for yourself and give others to your friends. And keep a couple spare, for those last-minute gifts.  And remember, a book is for life, not just for Christmas.

Important note

This was a public information announcement on behalf of all writers everywhere. However, I do draw your attention to the fact that paperback copies of all my books cost £5.99 or less. They are available in North America too (though with different covers) and you can buy them on Amazon or through Simon & Schuster.

Details of all my books are on my website (http://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk). There is lots to read there (and pretty pictures) so do drop by.

Bio

Tom Williams used to write books for business, but he gave it all up to write things that are more fun. His spy stories set in the Napoleonic Wars feature James Burke, who was a real person, though we can’t guarantee that all his adventures were exactly as described. He was a spy, after all, so many of the details are unknown.

Tom also writes about colonialism in the age of Empire.

When he’s not writing Tom spends far too much time dancing tango.

Tom has a website at http://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk and a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTomWilliams/ and he tweets as @TomCW99.

***

Many thanks Tom,

Happy reading (and Christmas) everyone,

Jenny x

Let’s talk about sex. Or not.

By

On March 6, 2018

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction, Jenny Kane, News

Today I’m delighted to welcome back Tom Williams to my site to talk about…well…sex actually.

Over to you Tom…

With The White Rajah having just been republished by Endeavour, I find myself thinking once again about sex. As you do.

The thing is that there is a bit of sex in The White Rajah. Hardly any. Rather less than the average romance these days and almost certainly less than today’s Daily Telegraph. It’s all very sweet, and very consensual, because although The White Rajah tells the true story of James Brooke – the man who Conrad based Lord Jim on – and it features pirates and battles and Victorian politics, there is at its heart a love story. And [spoiler alert] there are no female characters.

It turns out that there are people who still get quite agitated about this. Who knew?

Sex in books, it seems, is still a pretty contentious issue. Back in the days of obscenity trials, it was clear what you could and couldn’t write about when it came to sex. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is possibly the most famous example, but other books to run foul of the UK censor included Ulysses, Lolita, The Well of Loneliness, and Tropic of Cancer. Nowadays, though, we (or at least all the nice liberal London folk and the sort of people who read blogs like this) like to mock gently at the poor repressed darlings of yesteryear. Today writers can write, and readers read, pretty much whatever they want to.

Well, as Evelyn Waugh’s Mr Salter might say, ‘Up to a point, Lord Copper.’ For while my literary friends are happy to explore the “thematic explorations of the relationship between surrender and freedom, the nature and demands of love, and the spiritual aspects of sexual desire” in Pauline Reage’s Story of O (thank you Book Rags Study Guides for that gem), there are other readers out there who see the world rather differently. This is from an Amazon review of Leslie Thomas’s The Secret Army:

But we also see a country overflowing with sexual immorality. Yes, s£x [sic] did and does take place, but open oral s£x in streets or respectable married women regularly having multiple partners, even being passed from person to person? Perhaps, but surely very rarely, and not anywhere else as a regular occurrence except in Mr Thomas’ mind, I expect.

The question of how much sex is too much (or too little) is, apparently, a constant concern of publishers. One author I know, whose ‘erotic’ novella seems pretty tame, told me that her publisher had asked her to hold back on the kink, while another, writing a straightforward romance, was apparently told to include more explicit sex.

Adding homosexuality into the picture and some Amazon reviewers are ready to condemn The White Rajah out of hand:

Pity that such an excellent story should be ruined by the sexual obsessions of the author.

I think Tom Williams spoiled a great yarn by introducing a ‘gay’ element into a well known and loved adventure.

At the same time, several reviewers on other sites have complained that I shy away from explicit details. (Apparently I’m not nearly obsessed enough.)

The one disappointment I had, and why I give it three stars rather than four, is that the relationship between the narrator and Brooke is related in very timid detail.  [Goodreads review]

Nowadays the notion that characters don’t have sex and that their bedroom activities don’t affect their broader relationship is simply silly. But how much detail do we need? Even well-known ‘mainstream’ authors often seem to feel the need to describe their heroine’s enthusiastic response to the hero’s thrusting organ, though I would have thought most of us could imagine it for ourselves. At the other extreme, though, we have books that avoid explicit sex but replace it with childish innuendo that I would think many adult readers find much more embarrassing. (I’m naming no names, but I have at least one mega best-seller in mind.)

Obviously, some writers are seeking to shock or excite and, for them, this isn’t a problem. But what about romantic fiction? What about old-fashioned adventure stories? What about literary efforts like Julian Barnes’ dreary Sense of an Ending with its sad little paragraph about masturbation. (Uck!) I was going to say that it was a problem for everyone except children’s writers, but in the age of Heather Has Two Mommies, sensible children’s authors are questioning whether ignoring sex in books for children and young adults is really a good idea.

So: close the bedroom door and leave everything to the imagination? Or bring on the whips and chains and explain exactly what she means when she says that she loves him to death? I’m guessing most of us will go for somewhere in between. But where? I have a friend who was astonished by Fifty Shades because she had never imagined such things. Other friends would regard an evening with the eponymous Christian as a bit on the dull side. How can any author write a book with real characters with real lives that can satisfy all their readers without shocking any of them? And is it even worth trying?

Frankly, I’ve given up worrying about it. If a book with a gay hero is going to horrify you, I recommend my Burke series with a rather aggressively heterosexual bloke having his way with a whole series of women. (I can hear some people tutting, but he was a real person and must have possessed extraordinary charm or stamina or both.) But if you can bear the idea that one of the great heroes of Victorian Britain was almost certainly gay, then read The White Rajah, enjoy the pirates and the politics and share Brooke’s love of Borneo and its people and let the sex look after itself. It generally does.

***

Buy Link-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Rajah-Historical-Brooke-Williamson-ebook/dp/B079VK7V34

***

Bio

Have you ever noticed how many authors are described as ‘reclusive’? I have a lot of sympathy for them. My feeling is that authors generally like to hide at home with their laptops or their quill pens and write stuff. If they enjoyed being in the public eye, they’d be stand-up comics or pop stars.

Nowadays, though, writers are told that their audiences want to be able to relate to them as people. I’m not entirely sure about that. If you knew me, you might not want to relate to me at all. But here in hyperspace I apparently have to tell you that I’m young and good looking and live somewhere exciting with a beautiful partner, a son who is a brain surgeon and a daughter who is a swimwear model. Then you’ll buy my book.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. I’m older than you can possibly imagine. (Certainly older than I ever imagined until I suddenly woke up and realised that age had snuck up on me.) I live in Richmond, which is nice and on the outskirts of London which is a truly amazing city to live in. My wife is beautiful but, more importantly, she’s a lawyer, which is handy because a household with a writer in it always needs someone who can earn decent money. My son has left home and we never got round to the daughter.

We did have a ferret, which I thought would be an appropriately writer sort of thing to have around but he  eventually got even older than me (in ferret years) and died. I’d try to say something snappy and amusing about that but we loved that ferret and snappy and amusing doesn’t quite cut it.

I street skate and ski and can dance a mean Argentine tango. I’ve spent a lot of my life writing very boring things for money (unless you’re in Customer Care, in which case ‘Dealing With Customer Complaints’ is really, really interesting). Now I’m writing for fun.

If you all buy my books, I’ll be able to finish the next ones and I’ll never have to write for the insurance industry again and that will be a good thing, yes? So you’ll not only get to read a brilliant novel but your karmic balance will move rapidly into credit.

Can I go back to being reclusive now?

***

Many thanks Tom.

An interesting perspective- and I for one, outside of erotica, agree with the sentiment that sex can get on with itself very well. Of course within erotica (and I do not count Fifty Shades as part of that genre), the attention to – shall we say ‘detail’- has to be more thorough!

Happy reading,

Jenny 

Tom Williams: When I was looking for a hero for a new series of books…

By

On January 11, 2018

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction

I’m welcoming Tom Williams back to my blog today- and in turn- he is welcoming James Burke…

Over to you Tom…

When I was looking for a hero for a new series of books, I asked friends for suggestions. One of these was an Alaskan writer who I had met dancing tango in Buenos Aires, as you do. She said that I should look amongst the European adventurers who lived in South America around the time that they were fighting for independence from Spain.

Jocelyn’s advice (thank you, Jocelyn) was a while ago now, and I can’t remember quite how I started to follow it, but I read a lot of books about 19th century South America until I came across the name of James Burke.

Burke was a spy for the British who had prepared the way for the British invasion of Buenos Aires in 1806. (Yes, I had no idea either.) He sounded an interesting fellow, so I went to find out more about him – and discovered that, although there were stories in Spanish, there was hardly anything about him in English. The one paper I found was in an Anglo-Irish journal (Burke was Irish) not widely available in England. Even the British Library had lost their copy and had to send out for one specially.

It turned out that Burke was quite an exciting character. He had fought in Haiti and travelled widely in South America and Europe. His name was linked (nudge, nudge) with the queen of Spain, a princess in Brazil and the Viceroy’s mistress in Buenos Aires. Honestly, the first book about him (Burke in the Land of Silver, now available from Endeavour Press) practically wrote itself.

Oscar – the head gaucho

I needed to do some more research, of course, and that took me back to Argentina and an unforgettable day galloping across the pampas with the gauchos as they lassoed cattle to check their health. (We were with a Scottish cattle farmer, who said that his father did much the same thing, but with pickup trucks and no lasso, which seemed much less romantic.)

I followed Burke’s footsteps on horseback through the snows of the Andes, too, with a couple of nights in an unheated stone hut at 3000 metres, which was, in its own way, even more unforgettable.

 

Burke in the Land of Silver is a tale of devious plots, thrilling fights, wicked women and a villain all the more deliciously evil for being a real historical character. Buckles are swashed and bodices are ripped. I had huge fun writing it and I hope you’ll have fun reading it. And at the end, you will find you have painlessly acquired a basic understanding of Spain’s role in the Napoleonic Wars and some of the early history of Argentina, a country I have grown to love.

No one is quite sure what Burke did after Buenos Aires, but his name remained on the Army list well after the wars with Napoleon were over. I’ve written five books about him now, three to be published over the next few weeks and the remaining two to come out later, if book piracy leaves me with enough sales to justify them. (I so wish I was exaggerating the problem there, but I’m not.) The stories that follow Burke in the Land of Silver are entirely fictional, but the historical background to each one is all too real. The wars with France were horribly bloody, wreaking havoc with the economies of every country in Europe. But in all the chaos and bloodshed, there genuinely were stories of derring-do and adventure, and I tried to capture some of that excitement in the James Burke series.

***

Buy Links-

‘Burke and the Bedouin’ – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078PKKNBD

Facebook –https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTomWilliams/

Twitter – @TomCW99.

Blog- https://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/.

***

Bio

Have you ever noticed how many authors are described as ‘reclusive’? I have a lot of sympathy for them. My feeling is that authors generally like to hide at home with their laptops or their quill pens and write stuff. If they enjoyed being in the public eye, they’d be stand-up comics or pop stars.

Nowadays, though, writers are told that their audiences want to be able to relate to them as people. I’m not entirely sure about that. If you knew me, you might not want to relate to me at all. But here in hyperspace I apparently have to tell you that I’m young and good looking and live somewhere exciting with a beautiful partner, a son who is a brain surgeon and a daughter who is a swimwear model. Then you’ll buy my book.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. I’m older than you can possibly imagine. (Certainly older than I ever imagined until I suddenly woke up and realised that age had snuck up on me.) I live in Richmond, which is nice and on the outskirts of London which is a truly amazing city to live in. My wife is beautiful but, more importantly, she’s a lawyer, which is handy because a household with a writer in it always needs someone who can earn decent money. My son has left home and we never got round to the daughter.

We did have a ferret, which I thought would be an appropriately writer sort of thing to have around but he  eventually got even older than me (in ferret years) and died. I’d try to say something snappy and amusing about that but we loved that ferret and snappy and amusing doesn’t quite cut it.

I street skate and ski and can dance a mean Argentine tango. I’ve spent a lot of my life writing very boring things for money (unless you’re in Customer Care, in which case ‘Dealing With Customer Complaints’ is really, really interesting). Now I’m writing for fun.

If you all buy my books, I’ll be able to finish the next ones and I’ll never have to write for the insurance industry again and that will be a good thing, yes? So you’ll not only get to read a brilliant novel but your karmic balance will move rapidly into credit.

Can I go back to being reclusive now?

***

Many thanks Tom. Good luck with your novels.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

Guest Post from Tom Williams: Who is Susan?

By

On April 15, 2016

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction

I’m delighted to welcome Tom Williams back to my site today to talk about his latest book, and a young woman called Susan!

Over to you Tom…

My books are a simple history of a man who finds his best friend has fallen in with villains in 1859 London. Admittedly his attempts to save his friend end up in all sorts of adventures with spies and crooks and fights with the police and much underhand business…Then again, there is the story of young Susan.

Susan has been recruited to help our narrator, John Williamson, who has been recruited to pass off bad sovereigns – a much more difficult part of the business of making money by forgery than the manufacture of the coins in the first place, which was practically a cottage industry in 1859.

Back Home

Susan, when I met her, did indeed seem a nice enough girl. Her father had been a baker, but on his decease (‘Just upped and died’, she told me, ‘on a Tuesday, just after he opened the shop,’) her mother had been unable to make the place pay. The family had got into debt and Susan had left for the Metropolis in the hope of repairing her fortunes, but, like so many other young girls, she had fallen in with bad company and, being desperate for money and having no reputation left to preserve, she had turned to selling her body to survive.

Susan still had a little of the bloom of the country on her, though she was already developing a certain hardness in her features which seems common to women who make their money as she did. Still, once Michael and I had dressed her up in clothes that we purchased especially for the business at hand, she could pass as respectable.

Our first foray was made that afternoon to the Burlington Arcade. Michael assured me that my companion’s appearance would be entirely unremarked there. So, having dressed myself in my smartest suit, I repaired to Piccadilly with her on my arm.

Burlington Arcade

Burlington Arcade

Despite the new outfit, the girl could not but look what she was and anyone watching our progress through the West End would see a gentleman with his poll. This was a role that, given my nature, was one that I had never played before. I must admit that, in anticipation, I had believed that I would be mortified with embarrassment, and was uncertain that I would be able to pull it off, but, in the event, I found myself but one of many promenading with a woman clearly not my wife. Indeed, once I had opened my eyes to what was going on around me, it seemed that the Burlington Arcade was as rife with vice as Seven Dials – but in the Arcade the women were much better dressed and the signs of pox less immediately visible.

Accompanied by this woman, it seemed natural that we would find ourselves loitering in front of a jeweller’s window. She pointed enthusiastically at the display, while I made as if I were anxious to be off down the street. Once I was sure that our dumb show had been noticed by the staff inside the shop – one of whom, I could swear, was trying unsuccessfully to hide his smile – I shrugged resignedly and went in alone, pointedly leaving my companion outside. With every appearance of embarrassment and awkwardness, which required little in the way of acting on my part, I indicated that I wanted a small bracelet from the window display. I had carefully chosen an item that might reasonably be purchased with ready money. The assistant picked it from the window and, without being asked, made it up into a neatly wrapped packet.

‘Sir will be taking his purchase with him?’ he asked, struggling to conceal his smirk.

I nodded, blushing.

‘That will be three guineas, sir.’

I reached into my pocket and withdrew three golden coins and three (real) shillings, which I slapped onto the counter, grabbing at my parcel and heading toward the door. The assistant was clearly amused and watched as I hastened towards my lady friend and passed her the package. She immediately threw her arms around me and, from the corner of my eye, I saw the shop man, his eyes glued to this indecorous display, toss the coins into a drawer without any proper examination at all.

*  *  *

After a lifetime of respectability, writing research reports for government and management, Tom now writes historical novels. He is a man of spotless integrity, whose greatest vice is occasionally dancing tango with women who are not his wife.

10922721_10155122856645581_8515267756084168366_n

Tom’s books:

The Williamson Papers

The White Rajah:  myBook.to/WhiteRajah

Cawnpore: myBook.to/Cawnpore

Back Home: mybook.to/backhome

And here are the stories about James Burke.

Burke in the Land of Silver: myBook.to/LandofSilver

Burke and the Bedouin: mybook.to/Bedouin

Burke at Waterloo: myBook.to/BurkeWaterloo

Burke at Waterloo

I blog at http://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/

My Facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTomWilliams/

My Twitter handle is @TomCW99

***

Many thanks Tom- another great blog.

Happy reading,

Jenny x

My First Time: Tom Williams

By

On February 17, 2016

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction, Interview

My new fortnightly blog series, talking about authors first publishing experiences, continues today with a geat interview from historical novelist, Tom Williams.

First Time

My First Time

I can’t remember the first story I ever wrote. For this blog we’re not supposed to include stories we were made to write at school, but I loved writing stories at school. I wrote stories, poems, essays … I wrote anything and everything. I’ve always enjoyed writing.

When I was a teenager I decided I’d like to write short stories for publication. I bought loads of women’s magazines and read them and then tried to write something that would fit their market, but I never cracked it. This was in the days before word processing so I got individually typewritten rejection letters. I remember they were often on very small sheets of paper. Presumably they sent so many of them out that using small sheets meant a real saving.

That was when I started my world-class collection of rejections. I’ve still got a lot of them, hidden in a box in the loft.

Eventually I grew up (more or less), got a job, got married, and got a life (not necessarily in that order). I’ve always been incredibly jealous of people who can organise their writing round work/marriage/hobbies. I’ve never been able to. I think it’s even harder when, like me, you do a lot of writing in the course of your work. I more or less gave up writing fiction for years but then decided that I would take time out and try and produce the novel I had always dreamt of. It took me almost a year and it attracted the interest of quite a well-known agent who sent me to an editor. I was still very young and had absolutely no idea of how lucky I was to get that far. Instead of persevering, I got increasingly frustrated until the editor suggested that I should rest the book, do something else, and come back to it. I rested it for over twenty years before I decided to have a crack at another novel. When I thought about what I wanted to do, I realised that I could take the story that I had tried to tell all those years ago and twist it round to tell it from another direction. This is the book that eventually became The White Rajah. Yet again, it did find an agent, but, though he sent it to several major publishers all of them politely declined it. It was, they said, a “difficult” first novel. Why not write something more commercial and then tried to sell The White Rajah once I was established?

The White Rajah2

I obediently went off to write something “more commercial” (it eventually became Burke in the Land of Silver) but I was beginning to think that I would be cold in my grave before The White Rajah ever saw publication. Then I saw that a tiny US indie publisher, who specialised in novels for the gay community, was looking for historical works. I had a suspicion that one of the things that made The White Rajah “difficult” was that it featured a love story but also a pronounced absence of any female characters. I decided that a niche indie publisher was probably the way to go so The White Rajah finally saw publication.

[Scrabbles desperately around and finds Jenny’s interview questions. Tries to pull himself back on track.]

What effect did that have on your life?

In practical terms, not a lot. I think everybody imagines that their first published book will change their lives, but it’s very rare that it does. It got some nice reviews and enough people bought it for JMS to ask me to produce a sequel so I did. That was Cawnpore. For what it’s worth, I think it’s the better book, but I’m happy to have written both of them.

Cawnpore_edited-1

Does your first published story reflect your current writing style?

Yes and no. I finally took the advice I had been offered years earlier and tried to write something more commercial. So I’ve written three books about a (very) heterosexual spy in the time of Napoleon and am working on a fourth. Apart from the fact that these are historical novels, they have practically nothing in common with the first two books. At the same time I produced another book in the original series, Back Home, which will be published by Accent in April. That’s totally in the style of the first two. It was never originally conceived as a trilogy, but it has worked out very naturally. The three books have different subjects but they are all seen through the eyes of John Williamson. We meet him first as a young man setting out from England for adventures in the Far East and then, in Cawnpore, as an established figure in British colonial administration who sees everything he has worked for being destroyed in the Indian Mutiny. The final book sees him back in England, closing the circle of his life. It’s fair to say that they’re not cheerful, but I honestly think they’re worth a read.

What are you working on at the moment?

Another book about my spy, James Burke. This time he will be fighting in the Peninsular War.

Tom Williams

Bio

Tom Williams used to write about boring things for money. If you wanted an analysis of complaints volumes in legal services or attitudes to diversity at the BBC, then he was your man. Now he writes much more interesting books about historical characters and earns in a year about what he could make in a day back then. (This, unfortunately, is absolutely true.) He also writes a blog (http://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/) which is widely read all over the world and generates no income at all. Besides making no money from writing, Tom makes no money out of occasionally teaching people to tango and then spends all the money he hasn’t made on going to dance in Argentina.

Please save Tom from himself and buy the bloody books.

 

Here are links to the published stories about John Williamson.

The White Rajah:  myBook.to/WhiteRajah

Cawnpore: myBook.to/Cawnpore

Back Home will be published in April.

TW1Burke at Waterloo

And here are the stories about James Burke.

Burke in the Land of Silver: myBook.to/LandofSilver

Burke and the Bedouin: http://mybook.to/Bedouin

Burke at Waterloo: myBook.to/BurkeWaterloo

Burke in the land of silver

Many thanks Tom. Great interview!

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny xx

 

 

Guest Post by Tom Williams: “The vertical expression of a horizontal desire.”

By

On September 9, 2015

In Blog, Fiction, Historical fiction

Today I am joined by Tom Williams, Waterloo expert, novelist, and tango-er… This is such a great blog. Why not sit back, relax, and have a read- because afterwards you’ll want to jump up and flex those dancing feet.

Over to you Tom…

“The vertical expression of a horizontal desire.”

I feel a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet: you have to get that line out of the way at the beginning, otherwise everyone is just waiting for you to say it. When people talk about tango the whole issue of sex, as famously summed up in that quote, hangs over the conversation.

People say that tango started in the brothels of Buenos Aires, although it was originally danced as much between men as between men and women. When tango first appeared in Argentina, men vastly outnumbered women. Hence both the brothels and large numbers of men dancing with each other. As time passed, the origins of the dance became obscure and it became fashionable to argue that it didn’t start in brothels at all. I really don’t know: I wasn’t there. I do know that the Piazzolla – the composer who was largely responsible for the resurgence of tango in the late 20th century – originally refused to play tango at the Paris Conservatoire because he associated it with working in houses of ill repute when he started out as a musician.

In Buenos Aires, tango was originally the dance of the workers, despised by the middle classes for its earthiness and overt sexuality. From time to time, it was suppressed and some famous tango band leaders were in and out of jail as political prisoners. Only as tango became more fashionable abroad, did it become increasingly accepted in the country where it developed. Nowadays Argentina proudly proclaims itself as the home of tango, a claim hotly disputed by Uruguay. Both countries agreed to accept joint ‘ownership’ of tango when the United Nations declared it part of the world’s ‘intangible cultural heritage’ in 2009.

Tango nowadays is hardly likely to be seen danced in brothels, but it still has definite associations with sex. When it comes to the ‘tango look’, this is reflected in the killer heels and fish-net tights. (Why fish-net tights are particularly associated with sex remains a mystery to me, but they are definitely making a come-back on London tango floors.) The music, too, dwells on love and lust, though this is lost to many people, as the lyrics are in Spanish (and often a particular slang dialect unique to Buenos Aires).

Tango 1

It isn’t the clothes that make tango sexy, though: it’s the dance itself. What tango teachers will tell you is that the secret of the dance is in the “connection”. What this means is that, as danced traditionally, the man leads the woman through his chest: so most of the time you would struggle to put a piece of cigarette paper between them.

 

Tango 2

So is tango simply extended foreplay set to music? There was a famous Argentine tango dancer visiting England who melted the (female) reporter interviewing him, declaring (amongst other things) that: “It is not essential that a man have sex with his partner but I would say that 90% of the time this happens.” In England (and, to be honest, in most Argentine dance halls too) we do things differently. People change partners throughout the evening. Delightful as the idea might be, the reality is that men wouldn’t have the stamina to sleep with all of them.

What tango does offer is a combination of physical and emotional intimacy seldom achieved outside of sex. Traditionally, a couple will dance together for the three or four dances that make up a tanda. A tanda lasts about twelve minutes: hence the title of a recent tango memoire, ‘Twelve Minutes of Love’ (by Kapka Kassabova). For those twelve minutes, your partner should be the most important person in the world. Tango is a lead/follow dance: there are no “steps” as such. The woman knows where the man is going because she feels changes in his weight through that “connection” that has them moving so closely together. If either partner is distracted from the other, the dance can quickly disintegrate. Being that close to another person, concentrating on their every movement while listening to the sensuous music of the dance, is a powerful experience. For those twelve minutes you may not be in love, but you should act as if you were. Does this relationship continue after the dance is over? Obviously, it can, but that may not be wise. In Argentina, men and women often sit separately and the only social contract they will have is brief conversation in the intervals between the dances in the tanda. At the end of the dance, the man escorts the woman back to her seat and they may not speak again all evening. Even in England, sometimes a man can catch a woman’s eye, she will nod her agreement to dance, they will spend twelve minutes of intimacy and at the end they will part, often without even knowing each other’s names. Obviously, attitudes vary from place to place and person to person and in England many people expect you to introduce yourself. In some places, particularly in Argentina, introductions are not usual. I must confess that I enjoy the anonymity of such encounters. It can be embarrassing, though, if this happens on several different evenings and you eventually have to admit you have no idea what your partner is called.

I have been dancing tango with my wife for many years. Both of us enjoy dancing with other people but (as far as I know) dancing is as far as it has gone. For some people, I am sure that the physicality of tango has led them into temptation. For us, though, I suspect it is the opposite. If you can enjoy such passion with so many people, why start an affair? Is the risk and messiness of a few snatched hours with your (other) one true love really offering you so much more than those twelve minutes, repeated through an evening as bodies merge and intertwine while the lights are low and the music plays? And at the end of the night, as the last tanda strikes up, you return to your lover’s arms for the most important twelve minutes of all.

Iceland tango

***

Many thanks Tom- what a great blog!! I have tried to tango many times, but sadly I am blessed with two left feet and no balance- as my husband will testify!!

Bio

Tom Williams writes historical novels, sharing a publisher with Jenny Kane. His book set in Buenos Aires (Burke in the Land of Silver) has no tango in it, as the action takes place early in the 19th century when tango didn’t even exist. There is some sex, though. This post talks about men and women, but other combinations are not uncommon. Tom explores some of them in The White Rajah and Cawnpore. Still no tango, unfortunately. In real life (if there is such a thing), Tom dances a lot, though with a mind pure as driven snow. One of the pictures shows him dancing with his wife. We’ll leave you to work out which.

For more about Tom and his books (and the odd post about tango), visit his blog: http://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/

Books by Tom Williams

The Williamson Papers

***

The White Rajah2Cawnpore_edited-1

 

His Majesty’s Confidential Agent

Burke in the land of silverBurke and the Bedoiun

Burke at Waterloo

 

Thanks again Tom,

Happy reading (and dancing) everyone,

Jenny x 

Guest Post by Tom Williams: “Oh I Never Read Historical Novels…”

By

On February 11, 2015

In Blog, News

I have an excellent blog for you today from my fellow Accent author, Tom Williams.

Over to you Tom…

I write historical novels. So, I hate it when people say “Oh, I never read Historical Novels.” Why not? “Because they are all too romantic.” But I don’t write Historical Romance. No matter: the conversation has moved on.

Or perhaps they don’t read Historical Novels because they’re not interested in the Tudors, or knights in armour? But my stories are set in the 19th century. It makes no difference: they don’t read Historical Novels and that’s that.

TW1

It’s annoying, but don’t we all have these gaps in our reading experience? For me, it’s Historical Romance. I can’t face it. I’ve tried – I’ve really tried, but I just can’t make it through to the end. She notices his well-turned calf, the sweat glistens on the muscles of his arm or her heart beats at the thought of his tender yet manly kiss and I give in and read no further. And the awful thing is that the author may not even have used any of these clichés, but there’s something about this particular genre that has me imagining them whether or not they are there on page. I admitted this in public and was taken to task by a Historical Romance writer who pointed out that her stories are well researched, nicely written and featured often quite complex characters in interesting social situations. She was right and I’m wrong. I am going to give her books another go, but I suspect that, once again, I will give up.

Why do we all have genres that we just don’t read? The obvious suggestion is that it has something to do with “books for men” and “books for women”. In my case, though, this is far from being the case – I love contemporary Chick Lit. I’ve even been known to tackle a book by that Jenny Kane. Perhaps it’s the background to the stories? But I write historical novels myself and I read other people’s historical novels set in all sorts of periods. So why this mental block with Historical Romance?

The problem does seem to be with the genre and not the book. This is particularly clear with people who sniffily announce that they would never read, for example, Harry Potter because “I don’t read books for children.” Publishers responded by putting an “adult” cover on the Harry Potter series and, lo and behold! adults were suddenly happy to read them. The same result can be achieved more subtly: my wife, for example, doesn’t read Science Fiction, unless “it’s someone like Ursula Le Guin, who’s writing really good books – not really just Science Fiction.” Well, yes, Lord Copper – up to a point. What, I think, the most honest of us will eventually decide is that if the book is a “good” book but placed in a genre that we don’t read, will simply reclassify it. So Bridget Jones is not Chick Lit, it’s Social Comedy; John Grisham doesn’t write rubbishy Crime Stories, he writes the altogether superior Legal Thrillers.

Part of the reason that we are so strict about what genres we will and won’t allow ourselves to enjoy is, I think, that the books that we will admit to reading – proudly displayed on our bookshelves, unlike that rubbishy thing consigned to the bedside table – say something about us. In a world where mass entertainment is, arguably, increasingly democratised, books are still one of the great class markers. I have a friend who runs an online group where people can discuss their reading matter. Apparently all these people read massively more James Joyce, Chekhov,  Peter Ackroyd, HE Bates, Guy De Maupassant, and Albert Camus than they do Agatha Christie or Dan Brown. (I swear I’m not making this up and nor are members of the group all graduates from an English Department.) Admitting to liking a particular genre makes you a member of a particular club. The genre is far more important than the book. We see the same applied to individual writers. “Oh Dickens is such a wonderful author.” Well, many of his books certainly are fine examples of English literature. It doesn’t take a particularly critical reader, though, to see that some of them are definitely better than others. But to explain that you consider this or that book to be deserving of critical approval and another one to show signs of having been written to a deadline on a bad day, calls for more discussion and analysis than we can tolerate when deciding whether people do or don’t fit into our social group. What we want in social markers is a straightforward way of deciding whether we are in or out of the Magic Circle of social acceptability.

As an author, Jenny provides an interesting (and surprisingly common) example of the importance of keeping our genres separate. Jenny Kane writes Contemporary Romance – Chick Lit if you will – where we follow a young woman through the unfolding of her relationship until we reach, hopefully, a happy conclusion. But Jenny has a dark side. She also writes about young women whose romantic journey is accompanied by whips and chains and practices that we do not discuss in polite society. So important is it to keep these two genres completely separate that she produces the more lively novels under a different name. Mills and Boon, faced with the same problem, put their – actually rather well-written – erotica under a completely different imprint. After all, when my maiden aunt tells me that she really enjoys Mills and Boon, it’s important that I know exactly what sort of Mills and Boon she is into.

I suspect, then, that this is at least part of the answer of why we will respond warmly to some genres and reject others out of hand. Like so many things in England, it’s a matter of class. And now I am aware of that, I hope that I will try to restrain my prejudices. If I’m faced with a Historical Romance in which credible characters form realistic relationships against an authentic historical background, I will persevere. I might even come to love it. Perhaps we should all try to read things outside the genres that we are comfortable to say that we like. Reading, after all, should be about broadening the mind. So let’s try to broaden our own minds.

Perhaps I should try something by that Kay Jaybee…

***

Tom Williams

Bio:

Have you ever noticed how many authors are described as ‘reclusive’? I have a lot of sympathy for them. My feeling is that authors generally like to hide at home with their laptops or their quill pens and write stuff. If they enjoyed being in the public eye, they’d be stand-up comics or pop stars. Nowadays, though, writers are told that their audiences want to be able to relate to them as people. I’m not entirely sure about that. If you knew me, you might not want to relate to me at all. But here in hyperspace I apparently have to tell you that I’m young and good looking and live somewhere exciting with a beautiful partner, a son who is a brain surgeon and a daughter who is a swimwear model. Then you’ll buy my book.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. I’m older than you can possibly imagine. (Certainly older than I ever imagined until I suddenly woke up and realised that age had snuck up on me.) I live in Richmond, which is nice and on the outskirts of London which is a truly amazing city to live in. My wife is beautiful but, more importantly, she’s a lawyer, which is handy because a household with a writer in it always needs someone who can earn decent money. My son has left home and we never got round to the daughter.

I street skate and ski and can dance a mean Argentine tango. I’ve spent a lot of my life writing about very dull things for money (unless you’re in Customer Care, in which case ‘Dealing With Customer Complaints’ is really, really interesting). Now I’m writing for fun. If you all buy my books, I’ll be able to finish the next ones and I’ll never have to work for the insurance industry again and that will be a good thing, yes? So you’ll not only get to read a brilliant novel but your karmic balance will move rapidly into credit.

Can I go back to being reclusive now?

***

Many thanks Tom- what a fantastic blog! If you do try some of that Jaybees work, make sure you have a cool drink to hand…

You can find Tom’s latest novel, here-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Burke-Bedouin-Majestys-Confidential-Agent-ebook/dp/B00OIYY8U2  http://www.amazon.com/Burke-Bedouin-Majestys-Confidential-Agent-ebook/dp/B00OIYY8U2.

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

Meet My Main Character: Guest Blog from Tom Williams

By

On June 23, 2014

In Blog, News

I’m delighted to welcome Tom Williams back to my site.

Today, Tom is sharing his contribution to the continuing series called, “Meet My Main Character,” the brain child of Debra Brown (http://englishepochs.blogspot.com/2014/04/meet-my-main-character-by-debra-brown.html) who is the Administrator of English Historical Fiction Authors, a really worthwhile website for anyone interested in obscure bits of British history.

 HMCA- Tom Williams

1) What is the name of your character? Is he fictional or a historic person? James Burke was a spy for the British during the Napoleonic Wars. He was a real person and the story is based around real events in his life. That said, he was a very good spy, so there’s a lot we don’t know about him. This means that I get the chance to tell a good story without too much fear of being told I’m definitely wrong.

2) When and where is the story set? It starts in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1792, but the story pivots on the British invasion of Buenos Aires in 1806. It takes in Spain and Brazil as well, though. People in those days travelled around much more than most of us realise.

3) What should we know about him? James’ father is an impoverished gentleman in Ireland, living off the rents of tenant farmers. Although this gives him the status of ‘gentleman’, there is no money to enable him to live the lifestyle that James wants. James is desperate to get away from Ireland and make a success of himself in Society. He decides his best bet is to join the army but, to his horror, he finds himself caught in intelligence work. He’s a snob and a social climber and hates being a spy, but he’s good at the work. He’s also never slow to take advantage of any opportunities to make money or influential friends that may come his way in his adventures.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his life? He realises that there are more important things than personal advancement and he risks a lot for a cause he has come to believe in. More immediately, people keep threatening to kill him.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

He starts out by wanting to make a lot of money and move in the highest levels of Society. On a day-to-day level, he cares about completing his mission for Britain and surviving in the conflicts between England, Spain, France, and South American rebels. Later, he gets caught up in the politics of South American independence and realises that there is more to life than his personal advancement. Unsurprisingly, there’s a girl involved.

6) Is there a title for this novel, and can we read more about it? It’s called His Majesty’s Confidential Agent. There’s more about it HERE [http://www.amazon.com/Majestys-Confidential-Agent-James-Burke-ebook/dp/B00JZZS5JY]. There’s a sequel on the way, provisionally called Burke in Egypt. Yes, he gets around!

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

It was published by Accent Press at the beginning of May. Burke in Egypt should be published later this year.

****

Many thanks Tom If you enjoyed that, then the next ‘Meet My Main Character’ post will be by Jane Pollard [LINK: http://www.janejackson.net/] in two days’ time (on Wednesday).

****

More information can be found about Tom and his work at his blog site- http://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/

Here’s a sneaky peek of Tom’s next novel cover- out on 10th July!!

The White Rajah2

Buy links –

His Majesty’s Confidential Agent
 UK paperback: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Majestys-Confidential-Agent-James-Burke/dp/1783754214
UK Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Majestys-Confidential-Agent-James-Burke-ebook/dp/B00JZZS5JY
US paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Majestys-Confidential-Agent-James-Burke/dp/1783754214
US Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Majestys-Confidential-Agent-James-Burke-ebook/dp/B00JZZS5JY

The White Rajah
This isn’t officially published until 10 July, so there are no paperback copies available as yet. Kindle links are:
UK Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Rajah-Williamson-Papers-ebook/dp/B00KX9N2AS
US Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/White-Rajah-Williamson-Papers-ebook/dp/B00KX9N2AS

****

Happy reading,

Jenny xx

Guest Post by Tom Williams: His Majesty’s Confidential Agent

By

On May 6, 2014

In Blog, News

I have a fellow Accent Press author visiting me today. I’m delighted to welcome, Tom Williams to talk about his latest novel, His Majesty’s Confidential Agent.

Over to you Tom…

 

My agent, back in the days when I had an agent, told me that historical novels were clearly my thing and that I should sit down and produce something new in that genre. This turned out to be easier said than done.

I was chatting to a friend that I knew from time spent in Argentina and she pointed out that there were lots of interesting characters from the early days of that country. I have loved my visits to Argentina and the idea of setting a novel there really appealed. So I started a fairly unsystematic search for interesting characters from 19th century Buenos Aires. And I came across James Burke.

I could only find one article about him that was written in English (and my Spanish is certainly not up to reading academic historical journals). It turned out that somebody had stolen the British Library’s copy but they were able to dig out another in their reserve collection up in Yorkshire. When I finally managed to get my hands on it, James Burke turned out to be the ideal character for historical fiction. He was a real person and a real spy. His nefarious work meant that there aren’t an awful lot of details about his life but we do have good reason to think that he was in Buenos Aires while the British were planning to invade South America during the Napoleonic Wars. He was also (a massive bonus for the novelist) something of a ladies’ man. In the novel his conquests include a princess, a queen, and the mistress of a ruler I’m not going to mention here, because it would be a spoiler. The incredible thing is that these affairs all quite probably happened.

HMCA- Tom Williams

Once I started writing, I really enjoyed His Majesty’s Confidential Agent. The details of Burke’s life may be a bit uncertain, but the context within which his adventures take place is very clear indeed. I have made several trips to Buenos Aires and on some of them I was able to make a point of visiting buildings from the period when the story is set. Burke’s adventures take him out of the town and into the country, so I spent a day on an estancia, where I was able to go out riding with the gauchos – a truly memorable adventure. I even recreated Burke’s crossing the Andes by making the attempt out of season, as he does in the novel and, even though we had to turn back because the depth of snow, it was an unforgettable experience. It’s only around a page of the finished book, but very definitely worth it.

His Majesty’s Confidential Agent allowed me to write about a country I love during a fascinating period of history. And it’s got spies and battles and duels and beautiful women and real queens and princesses and moments of humour and romance in between the plotting and bloodshed. It was fun to write. I hope you find it fun to read. In this excerpt we meet two of Burke’s fictional associates: William, a fellow soldier who appears as his servant, and Molly, who has helped Burke out before and is to help him out again.

Extract

Molly counted the pesos carefully. She still thought of them as ‘pieces of eight’. It hardly seemed real money – not like the golden guinea she’d earned on the Rochester. She had to smile when she remembered that. It had almost been like a game, for all there’d been killing involved. But Mr Burke’s man, William, had explained she was doing it for the king, so she’d really been doing a good deed as well as making a guinea. And she’d found she enjoyed the pretending. After all, most of what she did for a living was pretending. The moaning and the screaming and ‘You’re the best,’ and ‘I always feel happy when you call.’ But never happy enough to forget to take the money.

She wrapped the coins in an old stocking and returned them to their hiding place under the floorboard. There was a prodigious amount of silver in the stocking. The voyage had been a long one but coming to a country where men so outnumbered women had undoubtedly been a good move.

There was a sudden knocking from the door on the street below. She heard her landlord answer. She paid him well – in cash and kind – as her protector and he took his duties seriously.

‘Gentleman says he knows you but I haven’t seen him before.’

Molly opened the door an inch or so and peered through the gap at the mirror strategically placed at the top of the stairs, affording her a view of anyone waiting below. To her surprise, she saw William. Well, she thought, he’d seemed too self-contained, somehow, to be calling on her but it took all sorts … And he was a good looking enough young man. She judged him to be still in his twenties, though he carried himself with an air that made him seem much older.

‘Send him up.’

She had just time to run her fingers through her curls and arrange herself on the bed when William entered the room. He took one look at her and the bed and the shutters closed against the daylight and he hurried to disabuse her of any expectations she might have.

‘I’m not what you might call a customer, Molly. I’ve another little bit of business you might be interested in.’

As he explained what he wanted her to do, she found her heart beating with the thrill of it. Another chance to serve her king, playing a part to fool some foreigners. And this time with real excitement, almost like a Drury Lane play. And another guinea for her trouble.

As William explained the details of her role, she found herself admiring his broad chest, his well-shaped calf in his tight breeches.

‘It could be dangerous,’ he was saying. ‘Will you do it?’

He had a lovely voice, too. She realised that he was waiting for her to say something and tried to concentrate on what he had been asking.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘And you will give me a guinea?’

‘A guinea now and a guinea when it’s done.’

Two guineas!

Molly allowed her eyes to run over that chest again. Those calves. And his hands. They looked like strong hands.

Molly knew the value of what she sold her customers. And she knew the importance of never allowing herself to give away what should be paid for.

She patted the bed beside her.

‘Come and sit next to me while I think about it.’

‘I told you I’m not a customer, Molly.’

‘That’s unkind, William,’ she said, pouting.

‘I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstanding.’

‘Then you can stand while I consider.’

So he stood and she sat on the bed and looked up at him and thought, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and yet, in her line of business, what else could she do? And so, at last, she said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and William thanked her gravely and said she was a brave girl and left.

She waited in silence until she heard the front door close behind him.

Then, ‘Damn!’ she said.

She lay back on the bed.

‘I’ll have sixpence out of you yet.’

Buy Links 

Kindle

Amazon UK

Amazon. com

Paperback

Amazon UK

Amazon. com

Bio:

Have you ever noticed how many authors are described as ‘reclusive’? I have a lot of sympathy for them. My feeling is that authors generally like to hide at home with their laptops or their quill pens and write stuff. If they enjoyed being in the public eye, they’d be stand-up comics or pop stars.

Nowadays, though, writers are told that their audiences want to be able to relate to them as people. I’m not entirely sure about that. If you knew me, you might not want to relate to me at all. But here in hyperspace I apparently have to tell you that I’m young and good looking and live somewhere exciting with a beautiful partner, a son who is a brain surgeon and a daughter who is a swimwear model. Then you’ll buy my book.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. I’m older than you can possibly imagine. (Certainly older than I ever imagined until I suddenly woke up and realised that age had snuck up on me.) I live in Richmond, which is nice and on the outskirts of London which is a truly amazing city to live in. My wife is beautiful but, more importantly, she’s a lawyer, which is handy because a household with a writer in it always needs someone who can earn decent money. My son has left home and we never got round to the daughter.

Tom Williams

We did have a ferret, which I thought would be an appropriately writer sort of thing to have around but he recently got even older than me (in ferret years) and died. I’d try to say something snappy and amusing about that but we loved that ferret and snappy and amusing doesn’t quite cut it.

I street skate and ski and can dance a mean Argentine tango. I’ve spent a lot of my life writing very boring things for money (unless you’re in Customer Care, in which case ‘Dealing With Customer Complaints’ is really, really interesting). Now I’m writing for fun.

If you all buy my book, I’ll be able to finish the next ones and I’ll never have to work for the insurance industry again and that will be a good thing, yes? So you’ll not only get to read a brilliant novel but your karmic balance will move rapidly into credit.

You can read more about me, my writing, and the world of James Burke at http://thewhiterajah.blogspot.co.uk/ or follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTomWilliams

Can I go back to being reclusive now?

****

Many thanks Tom- we’ll let you run away and hide now!!

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny xx

 

 

 

 

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