Usually on a Wednesday, I give you an update about my current work in progress, and I will, but today, there is a little more news than that…
Follow the Van has just been released and the paperback version should be available in a few days. This is book three of the Delamere Files series which follows on from the Larkspur Academy Mysteries, though takes us away from Larkspur while keeping us in the Clearwater world. The first three books focus on Jack Merrit, his first love and his new job as an investigator. With him is his younger brother, Will, and book four takes Will’s point of view of the world. So…
Where There’s a Will has begun, and I am already on chapter three. I must admit, I’m not sure where the story is going, as I only have a rough idea, but I know it’s going to be fun and intriguing, though like the others in this series, not particularly steamy. Meanwhile…
The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge is in a special promo that is celebrating the best friends to lovers trope. In my contribution, two 18-year-old besties go camping, one is determined to come out to his best mate, but then, they are attacked, and in trouble, and the two characters from The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge have to come to their rescue, both physical and emotional. Yorkshire Dales, mountain rescue, nerdy teens, crush, best mates, and ‘fade to black’ sex, so suitable for anyone who’s around 16 and upwards.
The special Historical Fiction available in the Kindle Unlimited promo is still running, and you can find the books listed here until the end of the month.
And soon… Another promo will hit the screens and you’ll get another newsletter reminding you (if you are signed up for my newsletter). This one is called ‘Spend Easter with Queer Romance,’ and there are plenty of new titles available. Or, there will be soon as the promo doesn’t officially start until March 29th. However, Click Here and you will be able to see the covers, and after the 29th, you’ll be able to click them and find out more info. I have all three series starters in this promo.
That’s the news for now, and as you can see, there’s a lot going on!
There’s a new promotion running on Book Funnel and this one celebrates the trope of Best Friends to Lovers. There are 49 books in this promo, and the page is a lovely long list of hunky-guy covers, topless men, and two boys outside a tent. Oh, that’s because my ‘The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge’ is included in this promo. This is a YA, coming out, coming of age, best friends to lovers novel set in the Yorkshire Dales, and can be treated as a sequel to ‘The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge,’ though it can also be read as a standalone.
I’ll be sharing more info about the Students on my Saturday blog, and there will be a newsletter soon. As per usual, if you have time to click through to the promo page and check out a couple of the titles, plus, if you can click the link in the email when it arrives, you’ll be doing me and the other authors a great service.
I’ll now go over and share this post on Facebook. Please feel free to do the same and get these 49 books some positive attention. Thank you.
As you might know, I have my three series starters in a month-long promotion. These are all historical mystery and adventure novels, and they are all available on Kindle Unlimited. If you’re not sure what that is, ‘KU’ as it’s often called, is a bit like a paid-for library. You subscribe each month and in return you can choose from over 4 million books, audiobooks, comics and magazines, ‘borrowing’ up to a certain amount each month. Perfect for avid readers. I expect there are some other benefits, and you can find out more about it from a Google search.
So, the books in this promotion are all available ‘for free’ if you have signed up to KU. I believe they are also available on Kindle generally and in paperback. I know mine are.
I try and promote the series starts as much as I can, in the hope that new readers will enjoy the first book, and go on to read the second, and so on. It sometimes happens that was and it’s great when it does. A couple of times in my writing career I’ve woken up to find someone has bought every book in all three series all in one shot. That’s 11 Clearwater Mysteries, seven Larkspur Mysteries, and so far, two Delamere Files (with a third one out any day now). Total coast of Kindles for that lot? Roughly $79.00. If a couple of people a day would buy the whole series… Pipe dream, perhaps, but it happens, just not to me.
So, this week’s highlighted novel is in the promotion. Finding a Way is the story that starts the Delamere Files. The ‘file’ in this case is the main man himself, Jack Merrit and the crime he suffered, and how he deals with it. In book two, Jack’s gone from being a cabman to being a detective, and his second file takes hm into the world of the Victorian public schools and old school ties. A Fall From Grace. The third book, Follow the Van, takes him and his very precise brother, Will, into the world of the music hall which was their late father’s domain as he was a top music hall entertainer.
Jack and Will Merrit in ‘Follow the Van.’
The next one in the series is to be Where There’s a Will. I am starting on that this week. I want to do something I’ve always wanted to do and have a classic (you could say clichéd) “reading of the will at a creepy old property during a storm”, kind of story. A Cat and Canary for the Merrit brothers to take part in. However, that’s as far as I am with it, and I am trying to think of ways to make it non-cliché before I dive in.
So, the point of this weekend’s ramble is to remind you that the promo is still on, and if you’re looking for more historical action and mystery, you can check out the books via this link.
Coming up on the 20th for a few weeks is a ‘Best Friends to Lovers’ promo with over 40 books on that theme taking part. The link is live but the book links are not: Click here to check it out.
Coming up on 29th March and running until the end of May is a ‘Spend Easter with Queer Romance in KU’ promo, with another set of books, including my three series starters and work from other top authors. Click here to check it out.
Three of my books are in a Kindle Unlimited promotion throughout March. One of the books is ‘Guardians of the Poor’, the first Larkspur Academy Mystery. Here’s the image of the promo page and the link straight to the exclusive list of titles from me and other authors of historical fiction. I’m particularly interested in the ‘Murder on the…’ series, because of the steam trains.
If you’ve read ‘Guardians of the Poor’ you will know that much of the story concerns the Hackney Workhouse. In fact, the story is about more than that. Yes, I researched what I could about the actual workhouse, as I do, and I realised I’d actually been into parts of it when it was being used as a hospital. The story, though, is also about the Academy and its setting up, and the MC of the book, Dalston Blaze. Through his eyes, we experience not only workhouse life but also we get our first view of the academy, and we meet the Clearwater series characters from the point of view of someone outside of the organisation, someone who’s not yet on Archer’s ‘crew.’ The story, though, is also very much about Joe Tanner, who is deaf, and I put a lot of work into researching what his life would have been like too.
Anyway, the point of today’s post rises from that book, because it’s one in the promo, and because I was sifting through some notes for it, and I found the following. I’m leaving it here as a point of general interest for anyone who is interested in the Hackney Workhouse, Homerton, London, in the late nineteenth century.
My notes, as usual, are taken from a variety of sources including newspapers and journals of the time (quoted), and are in no particular order, and have not been altered since I made them.
Workhouse Details
Plan of the Hackney Workhouse
Hackney: Lower Homerton (N div.)
By 1870s the main block was an inverted U shaped fronting onto the high street. North side, offices and stores. West: females. East: Males. South, a long block with chapel, children’s school, dining rooms, day rooms. Either side of southern block were workshops; stone breaking shed on men’s side. Admin block centre east of the site, casual wards and stone shed fronting Sidney Road.
Roughly 600 inmates (1866) 400 + in 1881 census
Rooms mainly low and narrow but with windows so good light, ditto stairs. ‘A confined air to the whole building.’ Male/female wards on ground floor are dark and cheerless.
I wish that the same could be said of other places where “the Poor Law” is wrested to a harsher punishment than that of the criminal code, and where the grim rule and oppressive dead level of the workhouse ward is but a preparation of the youthful pauper for the no more repulsive discipline of the gaol.
The librarian and superintendent of the Ragged School held in the house that was once the Thieves’ Kitchen, but now filled up-stairs and down with children perspiring in their nightly work of dividing a hundred scholars into classes amongst half a dozen teachers, and distributing the books which they are allowed to take home with them to read.
A blank wooden gate squeezed into a small space in the midst of the neighbouring shops, and indicated by a hoard, on which are painted the regulations for granting medical assistance, and the times at which the applicants for parochial relief will be received by the “Master,” is, as I am informed, the entrance to one of the most constantly occupied, although by no means the largest of the London workhouses, where a large proportion of the inmates come and go so frequently that they might, in some other districts, be almost regarded as “casuals,” and receive no definite settlement in the regular wards.
Christmas at the Hackney Workhouse
Dalston’s Childhood
(Based on a real case)
5 years old. Board of Guardians became his legal guardian when his mother died when he was five. (She died in a fire in Homerton, and was brought in with child, but no-one knew her name and so he was known as ‘The child from the Dalston Blaze’, because that’s where the fire was. The title stuck and became Dalston Blaze.)
The Matron, childless, saw the opportunity to keep him as her own so he was then brought up in the workhouse under the care of the staff.
6 to 13 years old. Sleeping in one room with 23 other children ‘the infant nursery’
Three hours a day instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, Christian religion at the workhouse school.
Corporal punishment on boys only and only by the master.
Boys under 14 could be flogged, but not over 14!
14 able to work, but Matron didn’t want him going to the ships/army, or to local work so kept him in work on site.
Sleep and beds
Seen in the bare wards, where the long rows of low bedsteads, each covered with the same pattern of counterpane, make even the dull walls more monotonous; in the cleanly scrubbed floors; the absence of any furniture save that which is required for the absolute necessities of the place; the walls against which the long rows of bedsteads stand have been coloured a pale blue, as an improvement on the sickly yellowish tint which is peculiar to such apartments.
Flock placed on iron bedsteads, with iron laths or sacking.
Red, wool rugs (blankets), decent bed covers.
Chamber pots under beds.
Thin sheets.
Very little furniture, no lockers or tables only a few chairs, no mirrors (men’s ward) and no prints/decoration.
Chests for foot warmers.
A metal sink per ward with soap and two combs (shared, I guess), no hair brush.
Towels supplied twice per week.
Dining and food
Allowance per adult person:
7 ounces of meat without bones
2 ounces of butter
4 ounces of cheese
1 pound of bread
3 pints of beer
Children’s allowance at Mistresses discretion
Listen to the murmured talk, which resolves itself into remarks about food; and then remember that here, as in a prison, extra rations, and an increase in meat and the privilege of beer, are the great topics of conversation. Well they may be, for that dietary scale hanging on the strict enough in its provisions, even if they were administered according to the intentions of the Poor-law Board – is at the mercy of guardians and master and matron, and may be reduced so much below prison fare, that life in a workhouse comes to be but a continuance of that struggle against hunger which preceded it in the world outside those grim brick walls.
Some three hundred paupers, old men, women, and children are at dinner.
at a cross-table under a high desk like a pulpit, the master himself without a coat, and with his throat released from both collar and neckerchief- is carving the meat, and weighing out the allowance for each person according to the dietary scale, which differs but slightly from that of the union where I lately made the acquaintance of the pauper of the north-eastern suburb.
Tin plate and cup, wooden spoon
The ordinary workhouse gruel, known to the paupers as “skillet,”
Hygiene, Health, the sick
For every morning (I am informed) the wards of this great straggling building are scrubbed and purified. The thin withered anxious faces which peer upwards from the white pillows, or rest in a slumber so like death.
Men with VD are placed in the ‘itch ward.’ (Small in capacity.)
Lying-in ward (a small room for birthing).
Imbeciles have their own rooms and day rooms.
A kitchen in the sick ward, but food comes 150 yards from main kitchens.
One fixed bath and one portable bath.
Badly ventilated generally, though some has been put in.
Too many men in each ward.
Only two paid nurses.
A pauper nurse and a helper to each ward men paid 1/6d each week.
Medical officer comes two/three times per week, daily if there’s an epidemic.
Rules (read aloud each week)
[These rules from the Hackney Workhouse 1750s, but (in my story) still in use.]
Morning prayers or lose a meal.
Not leave house without permission.
No liquor, quarrelling or fighting or lose a day’s meals.
Work or be kept on bread and water.
Wake bell at five every morning between Michaelmas and Lady Day.
Bed at nine in summer, eight in winter.
Bells for mealtimes.
No smoking in bed or bedrooms.
Roll call at six, one (lunch) and by eight (winter) if not there, punished.
General good behaviour, no telling lies or else sat on a stool in the dining room with a note pinned reading Infamous Lyar and no meal.
No defacing or graffiti.
You must not… Hang washing outside, go through the velvet lined door (staff).
‘When will somebody come and take me away?’
Clothes
‘Fisherman short coat’ (see pinterest)
Wards
The effect of this is less observable in the boys, who are now coming out in single file, and dressed (sensibly enough this warm weather) in holland-pinafores over their corduroy trousers. Some of them are still masticating the last of the most tasty mouthful reserved as the finish of their mid-day meal; and, as they pass, hear a general resemblance to the other inmates, inasmuch as they stare at me, while they ruminate like so many young cows.
There are amongst both boys and girls many sickly, deformed, and stunted children who will, perhaps, carry with them to the grave these heritages of the gutter and the foul lodging-house where they struggled, like unhealthy plants, into such life as they possess; but in almost all of them I am rejoiced to see something of that elastic spirit which shows that here, too, the old suppression of every hope and promise of youth has been superseded by a gentler and more beneficent appreciation of the difference between poverty and crime.
Again, in the workhouses the church bells may be heard within the whitewashed walls, especially in the stillness of the night, and, when they have the long account of twelve to proclaim, how many are lying awake, staring at the dark and listening! In the old folks’ dormitory, for instance, a woeful watch-night is it for scores of those whose shrunken cheek presses the hard pillow, and the more so, perhaps, after the mild excitement that Christmas brings into even a workhouse ward. It brings couples together that at ordinary times the Poor-law sets asunder; and there is the banquet of roast beef and pudding, and the half-pint of beer, and maybe the unwonted luxury of a quarter- ounce of snuff or a half-ounce of tobacco. All very proper and enjoyable to such an extent that for the time being it makes the grey- haired paupers forget everything but the treat in progress. But the worst of it is, after such stirring times, there comes reaction.
The Master
The master is in a great heat from the exertion of [- 71-] carving and weighing, although he is a tall muscular gentleman, with somewhat of a military bearing, and (notwithstanding his open collar) a way of holding his head, as though he had at one time looked at the world over a stiff leather stock.
daily visit to the different wards after resuming his neckerchief, and a particularly fresh-looking linen coat.
Sources
The Pauper, The Thief and the Convict, by Thomas Archer, 1865 – Chapter 4 – A London Workhouse
Mysteries of Modern London, by One of the Crowd [James Greenwood], [1883]
There’s a promo running all through March, and I have my three series starters appearing in it.
The promo’s been organised by Kevin Savilis who, under his name K. C. Sivilis, writes historical mystery and action books. In fact, the promo is specifically for historical action, adventure, and mystery novels. It’s an exclusive, choice selection as you will see, with all titles available on Kindle Unlimited.
Please share this message around and include the link to the promo which is right here.
Clicking to the promo page and investigating the titles doesn’t cost you anything, but each click brings the authors another step closer to new readers, so it’s a worthwhile thing to do, and sharing the promo page always helps us. Thank you and here’s wishing you a happy March.
There are 75 titles in this promo, with all books being available on Amazon, Kindle, and some on other platforms too. Each has an info page that you find by clicking the book cover, and those pages come with a summary or blurb.
I have two series starters in there, Deviant Desire, and Guardians of the Poor. I expect most of you have read them already because you are lovely, loyal readers, but there must be plenty of titles and new authors in the list waiting for you to discover. Looking at those covers, you can see there is an eclectic mix of niches, including friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, contemporary, fantasy, MM romance, FF romance, and, of course, historical fiction. Among the authors, you will find Addison Albright, Anne Barwell, and Ann Lister.
There is even one that features a model I used on one of my covers. T.L. Travis has ‘A Little Christmas, Orion’s Secret’ in the promo, and the guy on the cover is the same one who appears on my Dracula-related mystery, ‘The Stoker Connection.’ We share the same taste in tasty main characters!
Check out the list, click a few covers to explore further, and recommend your favourite authors on my Facebook Page.
There’s another massive promo coming next month, and I’ll be sending out a newsletter about that at the start of March.
Follow The Van
As Wednesdays are my work-in-progress update day, here’s a quick update on Follow the Van (The Delamere Files book three).
This novel has probably given me more hassle than any other I have written. Why? I am not sure. One reason is because of interruptions, but another is having too many ideas. There are so many threads, I am worried they have led to a lot of repetition. That will all be fixed, and the repetition is me reminding myself of what happened when I last picked up the pen two weeks ago, or even yesterday.
Fear not! It will be fine in the end, and the end is what is in sight. I have started on the climax/finale, though I have left the build-up to it until I have finished the climax, so I know how to start it… You see? It’s one of those that needs a good, long re-look once I’ve stumbled to the end. I’ll keep at it and am aiming to finish the first draft (in whatever form) by this time next week.
Today’s news is that Guardians of the Poor is one of my books in a promo at Book Funnel. If you like historical adventure, action, mystery and/or military novels, then there is a select number of titles being promoted by a small group of authors, me being one of them. All the titles are available on Kindle Unlimited.
As you’ll see, I have ‘Deviant Desire’ in there as well as ‘Guardians of the Poor.’
Guardians is set around workhouse life in 1890s London. It starts with a newspaper article from July 1890 which was inspired by a real article from March of that year which concerned a workhouse master (the superintendent) and one of his younger charges. Also feeding my inspiration was an article from around the same time concerning fraudulent activity at the Chelsea workhouse. I combined several real-life incidents to create my story, which is set in the Hackney workhouse. That’s a place I visited in the 1980s and 90s when some of its buildings were being used as parts of Homerton Hospital.
Anyway… I started the Larkspur series there, and in case you’ve not read it, I’ve reproduced the opening couple of pages here to get you started. Dalston Blaze and Joe Tanner go on to become students at the Larkspur Academy where they meet a cast of other young men all of whom have special talents, but all of whom have fallen foul of prejudice or the law. Joe Tanner more so because he is completely deaf, and can only communicate with Dalston through their invented and partially taught sign language. (That was fun to write!)
The series runs for seven books and climaxes with ‘The Larkspur Legacy’ which draws together both this series and the Clearwater Mysteries, before leading into The Delamere Files.
Here is the opening of Guardians of the Poor, and the link to the Kindle Unlimited promotion for 25 exclusive historical action, adventure, military and mystery novels.
Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper July 20, 1890
The Shocking Charge Against Two Men. On Friday last, Dalston Blaze and Joseph Tanner, both 18, were indicted for inciting each other to the commission of unnatural offences. The prisoner, Blaze, had been for his life an inmate of the Union Workhouse, Hackney, and Tanner much the same time, but were working as porter-inmates in accordance with the New Poor Law of 1834.
Sometime in July of this year, another officer of this workhouse, a man named Skaggot, reported to the police an offence alleged to have been committed in the workhouse. Inquiries were immediately made, with the result that proceedings were begun against Tanner and Blaze.
Evidence against the accused was presented in the form of pictographs, making this case unique, and somewhat open to interpretation. According to the prosecution, these symbols, when interpreted, prove the men were inciting each other to perform an unnatural act.
Edward Capps, the workhouse master, was called, and said he knew of no such unnatural conduct between Blaze and Tanner, and gave evidence of good character. He said, ‘I am keen the men are returned to the Workhouse to continue their good work there.’
However, there is another complication to this case. The prisoner, Tanner, was not in court and is missing.
Mr Willis, defending, was addressing the jury on the character of the Master, when the jury foreman interposed. He said the jury did not desire to hear counsel for the defence, because the conduct of the workhouse official had nothing to do with the case. Thus, the defence was told to stand down.
The Common Sergeant then pronounced Blaze guilty of the commission of unnatural offences, and pronounced the same verdict against the missing defendant, Tanner, and called the proceedings to a halt. He remanded Blaze back into custody until sentencing. The magistrate imposed on Scotland Yard to find and bring to court the accomplice, Tanner, before the sentencing, the date being set for two weeks hence.
Reynold’s Newspaper Sunday, July 27, 1890
The Hackney Workhouse Scandal. The case for sentencing will be heard this Thursday in the Central Criminal Court before the Common Sergeant, Sir William Charley. Dalston Blaze and Joseph Tanner, both 18 of the Hackney Workhouse, have been indicted for inciting each other to the commission of unnatural offences. Mr Avery will represent the prosecution; Sir Easterby Creswell has replaced Willis as the defence; Sir Malcolm Ashton will be watching the case on behalf of the workhouse officials. Reynolds Newspaper will be reporting.
The case has attracted attention due to the unusual evidence of the pictograms used in the planning of the crime, and because of the absence of the second criminal, Joseph Tanner who has not yet been recovered after effecting his escape from custody following the initial arraignment. We are also interested to learn why Sir Easterby Creswell has taken the case as it appears to be a mundane matter, and sentencing a foregone conclusion. Sentencing for this crime is usually five years imprisonment, and there is no reason to suspect this case will be any different.
While I am following the van (80,000 words, roughly five chapters left to go for draft one), I am also taking part in a promo. Follow the link, and you will find a range of historical novels, all of which are available in Kindel Unlimited. These are not necessarily gay novels or romance novels, but they are all set in a historical context.
There are only 25 books in this collection, so it’s exclusive, and I’m pleased to say that two of mine were accepted into the promo, Deviant Desire and Guardians of the Poor.
If you have time, click the link, check out the promo covers, and click one or two. (It doesn’t cost you anything but it makes me look good, wink, wink.)
Click to find the 25 books
Meanwhile… Follow the Van continues to trundle on. It’s taking me longer than usual to reach the end of the first draft because of a few factors. I broke off to put together ‘1892’, then there was Christmas, then a trip to Athens with the family, then Covid, but now I am back to it, and aiming for 3,000 words per day. There will be a lot of work to do on the second draft with this one, because I have put down and picked up the various threads so often since I started it, that I might have got some tangled up.
We will see, and hopefully, you will see it in print by the end of March.
Here’s a reminder to click to the promo and have a look around:
February is the month to check out new historical fiction in a Book Funnel promotion that is highlighting historical action and adventure fiction available on Kindle Unlimited. This promo runs from 1st to 29th of February.
The fiction isn’t restricted to LGBT, but covers all historical novels. Of course, I have Deviant Desire and Guardians of the Poor in the promo, as these are my two series starters. Recent promos have done well for sales, so even if this promo doesn’t appeal to you, send the link around, share it, and see if you can help get the Clearwater word out there!
You can also pick up some great new books along the way. I see I am in the company of K.C. Sivilis, and Milo James Fowler, in what is a very select promo.
Click this link to see the full collection of books being promoted, and remember, you can find them all in Kindle Unlimited.
Later in the month, there’s also a promo for LGBT + fiction to celebrate Mardi Gras. This will be from the 14th February, and my novel, ‘Guardians of the Poor’ is taking part in that. I will post more on my blog nearer the time, but here is the link for you to bookmark:
Make sure you at least click those links and see the books on offer; that gives me better standing in other promos, so you will be doing me a favour, and who knows what new reading you might find.
