Today, I am delighted
to have Janet Few sitting round my pool and talking about her brand new novel, Barefoot
on the Cobbles. So please help yourself to a glass of bubbly and a plate of
tapas and meet my lovely guest.
When Pauline invited
me to visit her blog as a guest poster, she suggested that I write a few words
about myself and my new book, so I have done just that.
The few words about me
I
inhabit the past. You might find me lurking in my four-hundred-year-old North
Devon cottage, or spot me thinly disguised as the formidable Mistress Agnes.
This alter ego is a goodwife of a certain age, who leads a somewhat chaotic
life during the mid-seventeenth century. One way or another, most of my time is
spent working to inspire others with a love of history, heritage and the
written word by giving presentations across the English-speaking world.
In
a vain effort to support my incurable book buying habit, in the past, I have
been known to pull the odd pint or two, sell hamsters and support very special
schoolchildren. Somewhere along the way, I acquired a doctorate in community
history ‘for fun’. I am told that I have an international reputation as a
family historian. My claim to fame is that I am the current Commonwealth gold
medal holder in the virtual ‘Rockstar Genealogists’ Award’.
Any
time that I can carve from my history-obsessed existence, is spent embarrassing
my descendants, travelling, trying to make my garden behave itself and leading
my grandchildren astray.
…..
and a few words about my new book
Having
published several non-fiction history books, writing a novel ‘seemed like a
good idea at the time.’ I knew exactly what I was going to write and it wasn’t Barefoot on the Cobbles. In that inexplicable fashion that writers
will know so well, despite all my intentions, Barefoot on the Cobbles is what took hold of my imagination and
appeared on my laptop screen.
The
story is based on a real tragedy that I uncovered during some family history
research. It isn’t a pretty tale, there is death, disease, shipwreck, conflict
and a manslaughter trial. There are some lighter moments, these are real people
and their lives shade from joy to despair.
The book spans three decades but the emphasis is on the 1910s. This particular era provided me with plenty of scope,
encompassing as it does, the First World War, the fight for women’s suffrage,
the influenza epidemic, the dawning of a social conscience and medical care in
pre-NHS days, all of which feature in the book. Being an
historian, the novel is grounded in meticulous research and even passing
references are based on fact. The local doctor really did have an interest in chicken genetics, the
cousin’s beau worked in the ironmongers and Granny Smale did indeed run out of
cream.
Barefoot on the Cobbles is a book about
human behaviour, exploring how our experiences impact upon our actions. I sometimes refer to the story as a
‘why done it’. The novel opens during a trial and then looks back to the
incidents in the characters’ pasts that led them to be in that place, at that
time, to become accuser or accused. The characters and their backgrounds
allowed me to explore such issues as anorexia, shell-shock, mental health,
alcoholism, the menopause and infant mortality. You will find evidence of my
interest in the history of medicine and of my love of the Devon landscape,
hidden between the covers of this book.
More information, including mini-biographies of many of the
characters and extracts from the book, can be found on my own blog The History
Interpreter http://bit.do/bfotc.
Barefoot on the Cobbles
– a Devon tragedy
ISBN: 978-1-911438-54-0 is available on Kindle in the UK, USA, Australasia and Canada. Although printed copies are available from Amazon, if you are in the
UK, please consider using another option, such as buying from Blue Poppy
Publishing,
from your local independent bookseller or directly from me. Thank you.
Thank you Janet for taking time out to visit and talk about
your book and I hope it is flying of the shelves.
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