'A rattling good read'

What do you look for in historical fiction?

Welcome to my fiftieth party.

I do not refer to my age. I passed that milestone a while back and celebrated by building an outdoor bar and kitchen while on sojourn in Spain.

Rather, this is my fiftieth post at the wheel of Not in the Script (NITS) which I’m pleased to announce has attracted a reasonable following of readers, writers and history enthusiasts.

It also comes on the day I stumbled across a review of one of my books by Douglas Kemp, a prolific contributor of wisdom to the Historical Novel Society.

Line in the Sand is “a rattling good tale”. I’ll take that, but Kemp has more.

I note from other articles that he is something of a stickler for historical accuracy and a critic of anachronisms. A reviewer to be feared by writers like me because, although I research each book thoroughly, mistakes have a habit of creeping into any writer’s narrative just when you thought you had everything covered.

Did I detect a note of disappointment that there is a paucity of historical evidence for my troubled protagonist in Line in the Sand, King David of Judah, set some years before he arrived at that lofty position. There is, however, some sketchy proof that there was a warrior in nearby Gath by the name of Goliath.

“So it is fair to say that the author is very much entitled to use his imagination to produce a rattling good tale,” says Kemp.

He goes on to say that my writing is “capable” and “absorbing to read” without any pretences to exceptional literature.

The latter phrase might have stung if I had ever set out to be a literary genius. I have no idea how to cross the threshold to a great literary work and glad of it. My writing is rooted in my career as a journalist and I don’t know any big words.

So I am grateful to Kemp for including the words, without any pretences.

The great and the good who come to our island’s Literary Festival every year do so with a string of top awards to their names but the best I’ve done thus far is “Wally of the Week” on at least three occasions for Luton Rugby Football Club’s veterans XV.

My current reading, apart from research volumes aplenty, is probably closing on that literary genius benchmark and I’m loving it. Especially learning that literary greats break the rules that, as yet, I have not permitted myself so to do. Yet.

Take Pat Barker’s The Voyage Home, the third in her Troy series. Booker and many more gongs to her name. How dare she quote from “Sing a Song of Sixpence” and “Oranges and Lemons” in a novel set around the Trojan War some 3000+ years ago?

Well she does, and I found the anachronism compelling. I asked myself, why not? I have yet to get beyond using modern idiom in ancient dialogue (as Barker does without restraint), risking the inevitable. When it comes, if it comes, I’ll take it on the chin and do worse in future.

I’m currently reading All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker who breaks the rules of grammar on almost every page. Even as a seasoned rule-breaker myself, this is as yet beyond me. But again, I find it strangely compelling. Besides, Whitaker has won just about every award going.

Next up will be Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits which caught my eye because it’s set in Fifth Century BCE Sicily, the island where I set Vipers of Rome. “Brotherhood, war and art” and daring to dream are themes that appeal and I just know this will test the boundaries yet again.

I tip my hat to Douglas Kemp for his kind words, to Pat Barker and Chris Whitaker, and in anticipation, to Ferdia Lennon. And to all rule-breakers because you allow me a precedent.

Line in the Sand is available here. For books, website and social media, click here.