Hackney in the Past

Today’s brief chat is about the London Borough of Hackney, Stoke Newington in particular, and in very specific particular, the Congregationalist Chapel on Church Street. This post is also about promoting a local service that has helped me find details about this chapel, and it’s all to do with the next Delamere book, currently called ‘Snapshot’ (working title only).

Here’s how one of my ideas soon becomes complicated.

I wanted to find a theme for the next book, and decided on photography. This led me to some interesting research which I’ll talk about another day. However, it also opened up the idea of a mystery story which then became the plot. The inciting event of the story happens, as usual, very near the beginning.

A client comes to the detective agency saying he has just had a great shock and found the body of his late father in a cemetery. So? Well, the body was in a place where the gravedigger was supposed to be digging a grave for an upcoming burial. So? The body they found has only recently been put there. So? It’s his father. Yes, but…? His father died 10 years ago and is interred in the family mausoleum 200 yards away. Ah.

Abney Park Cemetary

And so it goes on. Just for accuracy, I went to my 1888 maps of London and checked how Abney Park cemetery in Hackney looked at the time, and decided that’s where the body would be found, because I know the park fairly well. (I used to live nearby.)

My map showed me a chapel directly opposite the southern gates, and I made that the headquarters of the vicar who was arranging the forthcoming burial.

Except when I looked further into this chapel, I discovered it was a Congregationalist one, not Church of England or anything I was familiar with. So, that entailed looking into that form of Christianity, so that my ‘vicar’ character spoke the correct terminology.

My vicar soon became a minister, who later became a pastor, as I got to grips with the language of that particular kind of church.

Congregationalism (also Congregationalist churches or Congregational churches) is a Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. [Wiki]

Anyway, the religion isn’t what this story is about, but… For the sake of authenticity, I researched as much as I could about this chapel, only to discover it was bombed in WWII and is no longer there. Could I find its history online? Well, I found some, but not enough, and I became more fascinated. Then, through a variety of search strings, and having found out all kinds of information about the area, the cemetery and so on, I discovered there was a pamphlet.

This was written in 1912 and covered the history of the chapel back to the 17th century, and including the time in which I am setting my stories, 1893. A copy of this pamphlet is held by the Hackney Borough Council Archives Offices, in, unsurprisingly, Hackney, London, and I was welcome to visit during opening hours.

Obviously, I can’t do that because it’s about 4,000 Km, a boat, two flights and far too many Euros away, and I can’t afford that, not for simple background research, so I wrote to ask if they had a digital service. Not as such, but they do have a look-up service and could make me digital copies on request for a small fee. Having worked out the cost, I wrote saying yes please, because by now I was very fascinated, and they wrote back telling me they could do two pages per shot, thus halving the fee, and I said, thank you very much, where do I pay? Payment made, and within a couple of hours, there was my digital file download with the full pamphlet in PDF pages, and how fabulous was that service?

Made more fabulous because it’s only a small team, and all this was achieved within two days.

The front of the pamphlet

So, I am singing the praises of the Hackney Archives for anyone who might ever need them. This kind of service, to my mind, goes along with things like libraries and museums, places that collect and store, thus preserve, history.

And that’s how one idea for a story can lead to fascinating in-depth research, all of which makes the story more realistic and believable.

If you are interested in more mystery novels, don’t forget to browse this month’s Mayhem and Motives collection.

This promo is organised by Book Mojo and they have a Readers’ Central department which gives you loads of ideas for reading in all genres. There’s also a free newsletter to sign up to, and I am featured in today’s copy, apparently.

Links of interest

Hackney Archives Collections

Stoke Newington Then and Now (images and text)

History of Abney Park Cemetery

Make Believe

Today’s work-in-progress update concerns a few things. Let’s start with the last release.

I am pleased to say ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is doing well, but so is the whole series. That’s thanks in part to the Mayhem & Motives book promotion which you can find by following this link:

In case you’ve not heard the news yet, the fifth book in the Delamere series is available in paperback, as well as Kindle and KU.

So, that’s that, and this is this: Book Six – as yet untitled but with a working title of ‘Snapshot.’ (Which sounds far too modern a title in my opinion.) For some reason, I have decided to make the story’s client a deacon/preacher/minister at the independent Congregationalist chapel which existed in Stoke Newington at the time. Why? Because the chapel was opposite Abney Park one of London’s seven park cemeteries and a place I used to visit. Why? Because I only lived down the road in Kingsland (in Larkin Chase’s house, actually), and it was a nice place to relax. One day, after a hard motorbike journey from working out in Essex, I came back that way and, as it was summer, stopped there to take a walk and unwind. I was wearing my bike leathers and carrying my ‘lid’ as I won’t go on even a moped without leathers and a crash helmet, and strolled among the trees and old monuments, mausoleums and shrubbery until I became aware that I was being followed by a few older men.

Turns out, the park was also a big cruising ground. Well, I didn’t know until later when I made some enquiries among my buddies at the pub in Balls Pond Road, who stared at me as if I should have known this fact from birth.

So, I may well put in such an incident as I write my way through the first draft of Number Six. At the same time, I am trying to research exactly what it meant to be a Congregationalist, so I can learn the appropriate terms (minister, preacher, deacon?), and learn how such an independent organisation would have been run.

If anyone has a resource, I’d love to hear about it.

Meanwhile, I will leave you with part of a review, the first for ‘Make Believe’ and this clip comes with a huge thanks to Anthony for taking the time to write it.

Jackson Marsh takes us on a frightening journey into a world of illusion and mayhem mesmerizing us with his skilful writing. Those of us familiar with his other works will be glad to welcome back some of his characters from previous series, and a couple of new ones.

Jackson Marsh takes us on a frightening journey into a world of illusion and mayhem mesmerizing us with his skilful writing. Those of us familiar with his other works will be glad to welcome back some of his characters from previous series, and a couple of new ones.

You can read the full review here.

New Book Out, New One Started

Hello, and welcome to a catch-up blog post. First today’s news…

A Case of Make Believe is back from the layout guys. I have been through it, and it looks great. Apart from the fantastic cover, there is an image of the new character which I’ve had drawn, and the only thing missing is the title of the next book in the series. That will be added when I have thought of it.

If all goes as it usually does, the book will be ready today or tomorrow, and I will post the link when I have it.

As soon as it’s ready, you will be able to find this dark and mysterious novel on the Delamere Files series page here.

Book Six in the series

This one has got off to a mysterious start and even I don’t know where it is leading. It will have something to do with photography, though. Already, we have an opening that is slightly farcical but makes sense, and it’s one of those stories that starts a little way in and then goes back to the beginning. So, after chapter one, I currently have ‘X days earlier’ and the story starts from there with Jack at his desk, rather bored with doing the CID’s cold cases, and hoping for something more exciting to come along.

It does, and it does so in the shape of a Congregationalist minister who has found a body in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Yes, I know you’d expect to find a body in a cemetery, but not one in a shallow grave, and not one who died ten years earlier and yet looks like it died only a day ago. So, we’ve started off with a right old mystery which, by chapter four, thickens when the detectives (all four) visit the scene to find the body has deteriorated since that morning…

Don’t worry, I will find a way out of this. It will involve some kind of chemical reaction, like a photograph, and I think Doc Markland will have to be brought in.

Meanwhile, Jack has a new team of horses called Moonlight and Silver, though he still has Shadow, of course, and Mrs Norwood next door has her own stable hand and groom again.

Romance Promos

You might like to take a look at the titles in these two romance promos, if you haven’t already. There may be some new authors and titles for you to read there.

Nearly There

Once again, I find myself typing ‘Nearly There’ as a title, because ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is nearly ready to be released. It’s currently with the guys at Other Worlds  Ink who do the layout for me, and I hope to have it back for checking in a couple of days. Meanwhile, I’ve started the next one, and have drafted the first chapter and a half. As per usual, I have an idea for a scene and have started with that with no idea where I am going or how this one will end. Sometimes I know the whole story, other times, I know how it will end. In this case, I know it will have something to do with early photography and murder, but apart from that…

Here’s the current opening line:

Of all the things Will Merrit imagined he would do as an investigator, locking himself in a pitch-black bathroom with two other men was not one of them.

If you were wondering about the opening of ‘A Case of Maker Believe’, then here’s the opening line of that one (which follows the date, January 5th, 1893)

She stood beneath the stage petting a rat and wallowing in the gasps and groans from the audience above, while through the dust-shedding boards came the sound of her lover’s footsteps as the story neared its climax.

And, to tease you further, the final line of the story:

The box of gifts still to be distributed, he watched, smiling, and could think of nowhere else he would rather be than home.

So, all I need to do now on the Delamere Files Book Six is to find a story and write it into 100,000 words. Meanwhile, as soon as book five is published, you will be able to find it here:

Click to find the series page on Amazon

Let’s Get Promoting!

While we eagerly await the next Delamere novel (more news very soon), and while I work on audio clips of the Bobby interviews (see this page), let’s do our bit for other authors of MM romance, and mystery writers, and have a browse of three new promo lists. As you know, these cost nothing to click to, and the more clicks they get the more kudos the Jackson Marsh family receive, because we’re seen to be helping out other authors.

There’s quite a list this month. First, there are two new collections of MM and LGBTQ + romance stories set in various eras and settings. I have ‘Banyak & Fecks’ in this first promo, and it sits there alongside sapphic and gay novels, there are plenty of bear chests and handsome men on the covers and some intriguing titles.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/BFHOSTLGBTQIASL_SEPT/w2bc8kh8ct

Then, we have a whole set of new and older titles in the LGBTQIA + Romance collection, where I have my ‘The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge’ alongside many other similar novels, plus my ‘Mentor of Lonemarsh House,’ probably my most romantic offering.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/September_LGBTQIA_Romance_Sales_Promotion/e85zgpkdce

Thirdly, my usual monthly helping of Mayhem and Motives, to which we can add Murder, no doubt, as these are all thrillers, action and mystery novels, again set in various eras and written by many different and new authors. There are over 90 titles this month, so plenty of ideas for your TBR list.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/mysthrillsus-sep/m0f0l2wxck

Anything you can do to assist these promos is great; a quick click to check the covers is all it takes, and you never know, you might find a new author or two to read and support. Don’t get too engrossed, though, because ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is nearly ready for you and believe me, you’re going to want to read this one with the lights on.

A Case of Make Believe – Cover Reveal

I have the cover for the next Delamere Files novel, ‘A Case of Make Believe’, and you can see it further down this post. The book will be available in the next couple of weeks. As with all of my novels, it will be available in paperback from Amazon, in Kindle format and available in Kindle Unlimited. The series is turning out to be very popular, I am pleased to say. People like a good mystery, historical accuracy and an occasional love plot.

Here’s the blurb, and beneath that, a link to the full cover, again designed by Andjela.

A Case of Make Believe Blurb

Jack is left in charge of the agency, its new staff, and a missing person case that arrives unexpectedly from the Cheap Street Mission. A fourteen-year-old boy has vanished, and his older brother, Simeon, is desperate to find him. At first, the only clue is a cutthroat razor, but as Simeon’s past unfolds, so the case darkens with complications.

As they race to find the boy, Jack and Will’s journey takes them from the unbelievable illusions of Piccadilly’s Egyptian Hall to an opium den in Whitechapel, and from a molly house to the sewers deep beneath London. What the Delamere detectives don’t know is that if they fail to find the boy in time, the razor will play a gruesome part in a very public death.

Kidnapping, illusions, East End rent boys, and murders in the style of Grand Guignol, the fifth book in the Delamere Files series is the darkest yet. The books should be read in order.

Click the image to reveal the full cover and let me know what you think. (Ps. I know there should be a hyphen in Make-Believe, but there is a reason there isn’t which will become clear when you read the story. Inserts wink emoji.)

You Won’t Believe Make Believe

It’s nearly the end of the month and ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is off to the proofreader tomorrow. The blurb is more or less done, the author’s notes are complete apart from a section about sewers (you’ll see), the cover is done, and I will finish it when I have had the back text checked. Usually, Andjela adds this and finishes the cover but she’s due to have a baby any day now, so we’ve made this alternative arrangement.

I’ll show you the full cover on Saturday, so stay tuned.

Soon…

Coming up next month, apart from the release of ‘A Case of Make Believe’, we have two promos to help out with. One is what’s becoming my standard (and successful) Mayhem and Motives promo where several of us mystery writers get together to cross-share titles via one page. The others are an LGBTQ etc., Romance and Fiction promo, into which I have entered Banyak & Fecks, and an LGBTQ etc., romance promo into which I have put ‘The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge’ and ‘The Mentor of Lonemarsh House.’ There will be a newsletter coming out with all the details soon, so make sure you are subscribed.

You can subscribe here or by using the box at the top of the righthand column on any page.

Bobby

For those who have read ‘Bobby’, the biography of my gay godfather, you will know that he was acquainted with Shirley Bassey (now Dame Shirley Bassey, singer of ‘Goldfinger’, ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and other great songs). I am about to send a copy of the book to Dame Shirley, or to her office, which may or may not reach her, because of all the famous people he met in his life, she is the only one still alive. Bob would have liked her to have a copy, I am sure, and I’d be interested to know if she remembers him, and the way her dog used to leap into his pond after she’d just had it groomed. (The dog, not the pond.) So, that’s this week’s admin, as is composing and arranging the newsletter, sending off the MS for ‘Make Believe’ and starting on the next book… Whatever that is going to be… I will have a look around some old newspapers from February 1893 and see what springs to mind.

You will soon get to see another character too, so keep your eyes peeled.

Things To Do

The pieces of paper have come down from around my desk because the story is complete. The notebook is crammed with scribbles and things to check, but otherwise, the desk is more or less clear. Until the next time.

My view this morning

Things I have to do next:

I want to change a couple of names in ‘A Case of Make Believe’ because I want to use the names Fox and Sheridan.

I want to check over chapters 19 and 27 again because the point of view shifts and so does the tense, and I want to be sure it works.

Then, I must send off a copy of ‘Bobby’ to Shirley Bassey’s admin address in case she’s interested to remember him and her time in London in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, I must prepare the ‘Make Believe’ MS to send to be proofed.

But before that, I must come up with the final blurb and the author’s notes so they can be checked too.

Along the way, we need to apply for Neil’s Irish passport renewal, because it only contains two of his names and his UK one has all three, and the UK office won’t renew his UK passport until he’s changed his Irish one to reflect theirs, and it’s all very petty but has to be done and needs a covering letter.

(Must write a covering letter for Dame Shirley’s copy of ‘Bobby’ too.)

I need to get the ISBN number of the next book, and set up the front matter details.

Which reminds me, I must change the ‘Where There’s a Will’ files now the guys have added the title of the next book to the very end of that MS – this won’t affect sales or reads.

What else…?

Must get a newsletter ready as I have a couple of promos to announce for September.

I think that’s today’s list of things to do once I’ve posted this post.

Update: A Case of Make Believe

Here’s the good news: I have finished the initial draft of the Delamere Files book five, ‘A Case of Make Believe’, and am now working on the tidy-up draft. Meanwhile, Andjela has made me a cover and here’s the title…

I will show you the rest of the excellent cover nearer the release date which should be next month. Andjela is just about to have a baby so we’re sending her her all our best wishes from Greece, and I know you will too.

While I’ve been doing that, and she’s been doing the cover, Daz over in India has done me a sketch of the new Delamere detective, which is something else I will hold back for now – we can’t have all the goodies released at the same time, I must whet some appetites.

What I can reveal, though, is that ‘Make Believe’ is packed with historical detail that’s true not only to the period but also to the day on which the story starts. I have used messages in newspapers that appeared on January 10th, 1893, and I have used a programme from Maskelyne and Cooke’s Egyptian Hall mystery and illusion performances of the time, plus other headlines and details I found in the newspaper archive. Also, a couple of scenes take place in the London sewers, so I have been down there (on a virtual tour), I’ve poured over the maps, looked into the founding of the London County Council, the Board of Works and other such organisations, and have used my 1888 street atlas of the city to locate an opium den and a molly house (boy brothel). If you thought ‘Where There’s a Will’ was heading towards dark territory, you wait until you see what ‘A Case of Make Believe’ is all about. You may have to make yourself believe such things actually went on in 1893.

Remember, the promos that keep us afloat.

While you’re waiting for ‘Make Believe’ to come along, be sure to check out this month’s promos to find some new authors and new titles to read. Here are both banners with the links built in.

Mystery, thriller, and suspense novels
Find a new favourite author

The Writing Corner

Some writers sit as a tray in a shed, some writers use libraries, hotels and other public places. Then, you have writers who have garret rooms, use the kitchen table, or scribble in books when in the park. Me? I am lucky enough to have a room large enough to house a desk and a corner PC unit. I do my reading research, reading, plotting, noting and handwritten work at the old desk, and everything computer-wise in the corner.

Today, I thought I’d show you around my writing corner as I’ve not done this for a while, and recently, I have had many new readers buy and enjoy my books. So, here’s a welcome to them, and a quick tour of where the hard work happens.

First, the long shot

This is a wide-angle photo taken from my office door, to give you an idea of the layout. Just off stage to the left is a bookshelf (the contents of which could be a blog post or two on their own). The trunk I’ve had since I was eight and went to boarding school. Apparently, it was donated to my grandfather first and then to me, and it is an original Louis Vuitton from around 1912. The little case on top of it is a modern filing cabinet Neil bought me. The windows are open because it is 32° (at 3.30 in the morning – I couldn’t sleep), and the lights beyond are the masts of a ship. The fan on the trunk is already doing its work.

I will come back to the corner unit in detail in a moment. First, skip to the right and the door leads to Neil’s office/a spare room where our nephew stays when he visits. Then, we have a printer where the ink costs more than the machine, so I only use it for scanning, and have someone else print documents as and when I need them because it’s cheaper. Bottle of water? At this time of year, I get through about three of these a day, that’s 4.5 litres. The poster and pictures on the wall? The poster is all the Clearwater Mysteries front covers printed out, a gift from my PA, Jenine, and above it is a photo of Neil and me not long after we first met 27 years ago. Moving left, behind the lamp is a print of one of my mother’s paintings, and a map of Kent, my home county.

Now, Closer.

Okay, so on top of the desk, left to right, we have an old school bell I bought for a production of my musical ‘Time and Again’ back in 1997. The three photographs are 1) my godfather, whose life story you can read in my recent release ‘Bobby.’ This photo was taken in WWII, probably around 1940. 2) is a photo my cover designer, Andjela, put together for me. It’s Neil’s face on an old photo body, and I used the same image for Professor Fleet on the cover of ‘1892.’ 3) That’s our godson, Harry, the day after his 16th birthday when Neil took him SCUBA diving. (He’ll be 17 on Tuesday; tempus fugit!) The tiny image beside it is the Serbian National Theatre in Belgrade. We were there. I saw this old postcard, liked it, bought it, and then found a street artist drawing the same building, so bought that sketch too. I just liked it.

As you can see, there are several pieces of paper stuck to this corner unit. On the left, those pieces are my notes about my Book Funnel group promos, the things which are keeping us fed at the moment. There’s a banner at the bottom of this post linking to the currently running ones in case you’re looking for more good reads. These pieces of paper remind me of my dates and obligations. I have two running this month, three in September, and have lined up one for October so far. On the right, those pieces of paper are my notes for ‘A Case of Make Believe’, and they go along with the notebook that’s there beneath my arm support, currently in use because I have tennis elbow thanks to spending so long each day in repetitive typing mode.

Dotted around the desk, you can see on the left, a glow-in-the-dark model of the witch from the Aurora model kit (remake, not original). If you look closely you can see, top shelf left, my one and only remaining Dartington crystal glass beside one I bought in Prague in 1995, Bohemian crystal, and beside that, a small bear, a present from my husband. Then, I have my other glasses and some tablets, a beaker of water, and a cup of tea (must go and make another shortly).

Centre, obviously, is the computer just waking up and giving me a daily dose of how my AVG security is kind of ‘Meh,’ but it’ll do. AVG begrudgingly tells me that, and they’re doing it because I’m not giving in to their demands and buying every last and unnecessary security add-on. Then, finally, to the right of all that, my reading/writing glasses, some electrolytes because it’s summer, and some notebooks.

Perhaps not the most fascinating of writing corners, but it works for me. I can turn my head and look at the sea and sky, or I can stare straight ahead at the screen. Beyond it is a magnetic noticeboard on which is currently pinned a list of my favourite typos (to remind me to check them when an MS is complete), a certificate to say I adopted a Galapagos penguin in 2020, and out of sight (is out of mind) a reminder of what bills have to be paid when.

That’s me. That’s where I sit sometimes for eight hours a day banging our stories and researching the past. Today, I shall be doing just that and, as I have an early start, may even finish draft one of ‘A Case of Make Believe’ by the end of the working day – which will be around 10.00 a.m. as I was up at 2.00.

Here’s the link to one of the currently running promos. Feel free to give it a click and browse the books.