Review of Wolf's Head by Steven McKay

Wolf's Head by Steven A. McKay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed McKay's debut novel. It is action-packed, with quite a light touch on the historic and more focus on the fiction. The plot is pacey and quite simple, yet engaging.

The main difference with this telling of the Robin Hood story and others is the period it is set in. I found the details of the historical context, with mentions of the Despensers and King Edward II to be a bit forced. They didn't add a lot to the story in my opinion and felt like a bit of an afterthought. All the characters you expect are here: Robin, Will Scarlet, Little John, Alan-a-Dale and Friar Tuck. But despite mention of some of the robberies the band of outlaws carry out, the life in the forest never felt that much of a hardship.

I found some of the use of language a bit off-putting. For example, talk of people feeling adrenaline coursing through their veins (11 mentions of adrenaline), when adrenaline was not discovered until 1900, throws me out of the story. Call me picky, but I find this type of anachronistic language difficult to swallow in historical fiction. I have no problem with the use of modern turns of phrase in dialogue, as I understand that the writer wants to make it seem natural and easily understood, but mention of things that have not yet been invented or discovered, I find problematic.

Having said all of the above, I do not want to give the impression I did not enjoy the novel. It is an easy read, with characters that are likable with a clear sense of right and wrong. You root for Robin and his band of rogues, but you need to take it all with a pinch of salt. It is classic derring-do, but fun all the way.

4 stars - looking forward to the sequel.

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A trip to Northumbria - Part 2: Bamburgh Castle and Gefrin

I thought it was time to write up the second part of my trip to Northumberland, otherwise I ran the risk of writing about it next year!
Read about Part 1 here.
I drove up the coast through the rain to Bamburgh Castle. It is not that far from Dunstanburgh and it didn't take long. It is an extremely important place, both in terms of my novel, The Serpent Sword, and for the history of Bernicia, the more northerly kingdom of Northumbria in the seventh century. It was the seat of power of the Bernician kings. It is situated on an imposing crag, overlooking the Farne Islands and Lindisfarne. The site is incredible, its location makes it practically impregnable and it is an amazing vantage point over the surrounding land and sea.

Bamburgh Castle from the southern approach

Today it is a beautiful castle and well worth a visit. But, despite being the actual location where some of the events in my story take place, it did not impact me in the same way that Dunstanburgh Castle did. It is too sanitised. The whole structure is a reinvention of a medieval castle, rebuilt just over a hundred years ago.

The castle is an impressive, but sanitised, reinvention; removed from the real history

It still has the great views and some very interesting items in the halls and rooms, and a very nice cafe, where I had to stop for a cream tea (it would have been rude not to!), but it is lacking the ruggedness, the rawness of the castle just a few miles south down the coast.

Standing on the wall of Bamburgh Castle

It is a tourist attraction, first and foremost, and in being so popular, it has managed to lose that which attracts the tourists, or at least that which attracts me. It is somehow removed from the real history of the place.

Bamburgh Castle cream tea - it would be rude not to!

It was a documentary about a graveyard at Bamburgh, where they have found Anglo-Saxon remains, that got me started writing The Serpent Sword in the first place. The programme was called Meet The Ancestors, and there are lots of references to it in the museum in Bamburgh Castle, but I have not seen the programme since that very first time in 2001. I'd love to see it again, but I cannot find it on YouTube or online. If anyone has a copy, give me a shout!
After checking the time and realising I had less than three hours left until I needed to be back in Newcastle to meet my wife, I jumped into my little hire car, set the sat nav on my phone for a location on a small road in the middle of the Northumberland countryside, and sped off into the rain.
I was heading to one of the key sites in my novel and in the Bernicia of early seventh century - Gefrin. It was the site of one of the royal vils of King Edwin of Northumbria. Bishop Paulinus baptised the members of Edwin's court in the river Glen near there. It was destroyed by fire in 633, rebuilt several times, but ultimately disappeared and was lost in the mists of time until some aerial photos of the site in 1949 showed the outlines of  buildings in the fields.
The archaeologist Brian Hope-Taylor carried out many digs at the site and made several interesting finds. The site is now owned by The Gefrin Trust. It has placed some plaques and signs at the entrance to the field, but there is little else there to show its historical importance.
I arrived in the late afternoon and the rain finally decided to give me some respite. It was overcast, with broken cloud. The sun was attempting to shine through, but failing.
Gefrin lies north of the B6351 and there is a small lay-by where I parked. The road is small and quiet, with only a few other cars passing every once in a while.

Welcome to Ad Gefrin - informational sign

The gateway into the field is carved with goat heads and is evocative of the gables of the great hall that stood there in the Dark Ages. (Gefrin means "hill of the goats".)

The gate to the hill of the goats

As I stepped over the stile into the long, plush, rain-soaked grass, I was struck by the stillness. The large area is surrounded by brooding hills. Grey clouds billowed over the peak to the north. To the south, a farmer burnt some refuse on a bonfire, the smoke wafting on the slight breeze.

Surrounded by brooding hills

I traipsed through the grass, the rain drenching my trousers and feet (as I discovered that my hiking shoes were not at all waterproof!). A small brown bird, surprised at my approach, burst from the foliage and flew away, squeaking angrily.

Moody selfie in Gefrin

I stood there, dimly aware of time ticking by, and that I'd need to head back towards Newcastle and civilization soon. But as I surveyed the land around me, I could imagine the wooden buildings of Gefrin surrounding me. The smoke could have come from the forge, where Strang, and his daughter Sunniva, worked the metal for spear points and tools. The view of the hills could have been partially blocked by the great hall, its wooden-shingled roof, bejeweled and glistening with the remnants of the rain. The unusual, tiered, amphitheatre-like structure, where it is possible Paulinus preached to his recently-converted Christians or King Edwin addressed his subjects, would have cast its shadow over the grass.

The same flowers would have grown there. The same grass. It was easy to imagine how it would have been nearly 1,400 years ago.

I didn't have long to soak up the atmosphere. My shoes were sodden and making me uncomfortable. A car sped by on the road, breaking the silence. I had to leave this place and rush back to Newcastle.
The drive back was uneventful and I made good time. I drove through hills, small villages and forests, all the time thinking of the characters in my story walking these same lands, traversing tracks and old, crumbling Roman roads. Nothing has changed, but everything has changed.
I arrived back at Newcastle to find that Newcastle United was playing Inter Milan and the city was heaving with football supporters. I was pleasantly surprised that I was only a few minutes late back to our hotel, despite the stadium being right across the road.
I ended the day with a lovely meal with my wife at the wonderfully historic Blackfriars Restaurant. It was a perfect ending to a long, inspiring day. I hope to be able to return to Northumberland soon for more hands-on research - especially of the great food and beer!

Beer at Blackfriars Restaurant

Mini review of The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

More tales of Uthred from the master storyteller. This is not the best book in the series, and at times it felt a little like Cornwell was treading water, or trying to find a direction for the plot. However, the characters are strong as always and the final build up and grisly, gripping battle at the end provide the necessary and fulfilling pay off for the story.

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Discovery Day and Pitching Novels to Agents: Video Blog

Here is my first ever video blog. In it, I talk about the Discovery Day event I attended in Foyles and how the novel pitching went.

Let me know if you enjoy the video. If it is popular, I will do some more in the future.

Pitching my novel

I am knackered! Work and life are both busy, but I have been furiously getting myself ready for the event this Saturday, where I'm going to pitch my novel to agents.

Following the comments I got on my last post, and some research, I have come up with the following (with a lot of help from my lovely wife too!):

Can a young man mete out vengeance without losing his honour or his soul?
Beobrand embarks on a quest for revenge in 7th century Britain. On his journey he joins a group of warriors, but when they rape and murder a young woman, Beobrand questions the path he has chosen and vows to bring the men to justice.

What do you think?
Last chance to give me some comments! Any inputs much appreciated! 

Time: Where does it go and what do I do with it?

Well it has been over a month since my last confession blog post. I always find it difficult to set aside time for the blog, there is just so much else going on, and most of those other things take a higher priority than scribbling down random thoughts for a few nameless strangers to read online. However, if you are one of those strangers who stumbles across my blog and finds it even a tiny bit interesting, I would love to hear from you. A comment on this blog, or a tweet to me, or a "like" of my Facebook page, makes it all worthwhile and gives me a warm feeling inside. So don't be shy - get in touch and make me a happy man.
So, what have I been busy with? Besides work, which has been quite hectic of late, school has started, with the inevitable barrage of children's activities. I have been fulfilling that duty of many a parent: taxi driver. On top of that are all the usual jobs that a husband and father needs to do (and frequently doesn't do fast enough, or well enough), such as cleaning, cooking, securing the trampoline in the garden before the recent huge storm. You know the kind of thing.
I also sing in a band, and rehearsing and playing gigs takes up a lot of my time. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it!
So, as you can imagine, there is precious little time left for writing, and what time there is, I spend working on my novel, and not on this blog. Therefore, I hope you feel special that I am writing this just for you right now.

A trip to Northumbria - Part 1: Dunstanburgh Castle

The cold rain beat against my face. It blew in from the churning slate-grey of the North Sea. Clouds roiled above, heavily-laden; the weather was not going to break for some time, though there were small patches of lighter sky that hinted at the sun trying to push its way through the gloom. I pulled my collar up and trudged on. Water streamed down my face and I regretted not having put up my hood when I had set out from the tiny village of Craster on the mile and a quarter long walk to Dunstanburgh Castle. Too late now. I was already drenched and there was still quite a trek to go.
The elements were trying to dampen my spirits, but I was happy. For this was the first time I had been back to this wonderful place for over thirty years and it felt like coming home. I lived in Northumberland for three years as a child and I fell in love with the rugged coastline then. Dunstanburgh Castle had always been one of my favourite places, and as I had driven into Craster that morning in the hire car, I had felt an almost overwhelming sense of belonging. I experienced such strong emotions that I wondered how it was possible for somewhere in which I had spent such a relatively small amount of time to feel like home.
The area of Northumberland roughly corresponds to the kingdom of Bernicia, which is where I chose to set my novel, The Serpent Sword. So it was with relish that I seized the chance to visit when my wife said she had a study day at Northumbria University in Newcastle as part of her degree course. It all made perfect sense: she would do her study day, I would visit some of the locations in my novel and we would then spend a couple of days together while my parents looked after our kids. Everyone's a winner. Well, except perhaps my parents...
That morning had been a bit awkward. My wife was extremely nervous about meeting her tutors and fellow students at the start of her final year dissertation, but I was as excited as a child about to go to the funfair. I tried not to show it, but failed miserably. She can always read my moods easily. After a while of putting up with my nervous chatter and bouncy good humour over breakfast, while she stewed with worry over how she was going to tackle her dissertation, she told me that karma was a bitch and I'd get my payback for being so happy when she was so wound up. I toned it down and shut up.
After dropping her off at the university with suitably supportive words and a new leather-bound notebook I had bought for her in an attempt to undo my earlier thoughtlessness, I jumped in the hire car, set the sat nav on my phone, and set off for the first of the three places I planned to visit before being back at the hotel by six o'clock. It was nearly eleven in the morning, so time was ticking and I would need to rush to see all three sites: Dunstanburgh Castle, Bamburgh Castle and Gefrin.
An hour later I was at Craster and setting off on the damp walk to Dunstanburgh Castle. The castle was built several centuries after the events in my novel, but I have loved it ever since I first visited as a child. It is a very atmospheric place and as it is a castle on a cliff over the North Sea and only a few miles south of Bamburgh, I think I had merged the two castles together into one place in my mind. Perhaps even adding another place in Scotland into the mix too -- St. Abb's Head.
As I walked towards the ruins I looked out at the waves crashing into the rocky beach and images from my story flooded my mind.

"Far away on the horizon, beyond the sun-dappled waves of the Whale Road, storm clouds were brewing."

The sound of the waves, constant, yet ever-changing permeated the whole site. I would have heard the same crash, roar and occasional slap of waves breaking on the rocks if I had walked along this stretch of beach in the year 633 AD. The world changes so fast, but so much is just the same as it was for our forebears and it is easy in places such as Dunstanburgh Castle, especially on a blustery day with few people around, to imagine yourself transported to a past age.

Dunstanburgh Castle overshadows the area

When I reached the castle, I wandered around the ruins, taking care not to slip on the slick stones. I sat on a green, weathered rock inside the keep, sheltering from the rain and ate the sandwich I'd brought. I checked the time on my mobile phone, the reliance on modern technology bringing the present crashing back, and realised I'd need to hurry back to the car. There were still two more places for me to visit.

The ruins look out ominously over the beach and surf

I walked back as quickly as I could, the rain heavier now, really soaking me through. When I reached the gate back to Craster, I took shelter for a moment under the awning of the National Trust van and had a brief chat with the man (one Andrew Harkinns, I think his name tag said) who was there. His job was to sign up new members for the National Trust, but I don't think he was doing much business.
He asked me if I was going anywhere else and I mentioned I was off to Bamburgh and then Gefrin. He had never heard of Gefrin, so I briefly told him where it was and what its importance was in the seventh century (which I will cover in another blog). When I mentioned I was a "struggling author", he said I was the second author he'd talked to in as many days, though the other one was not struggling. Apparently she had told him she was number 48 in the Amazon Historical Romance chart. I've no idea who she was, but lucky her!

As I left, Andrew promised he'd look up Gefrin and me online, so if he has found this blog - hello!

I headed back to my car and continued up the coast for the second of my destinations: Bamburgh Castle. In the time of my novel it was called Bebbanburg and was the seat of power of the Bernician kings.

My visit to Bebbanburg, retracing the steps of my book's protagonist, will be a tale for my next blog post.

A nice couple from Yorkshire took a photo of me to prove I was really there