Notes From Home

Notes From Home

I thought I would combine book news with a personal update this week, and I have a few things to tell you about.

Banyak & Fecks

First of all, ‘Banyak & Fecks’, published at the start of the week, has already received a cracking, five-star review. This is a prequel to The Clearwater Mysteries and is written in, dare I say it, a more literary style. It’s not the usual murder, madness and mayhem of the books that follow, there are no cryptic clues for the reader to solve as you travel through the story with the Clearwater Crew, and although I’d consider it romantic, it’s not a romance.

Banyak & Fecks is the story of how Silas and Andrej met on the streets of the East End in 1844. It tells of their growing relationship through to the day or so before ‘Deviant Desire‘ starts in 1888. The boys were teenagers at this time (although that word didn’t exist then), and I wanted to give an idea of what it’s like for a young man to experience the confusions of sexuality at that age and in that era.

I also wanted to drop in plotlines and people who appear in the books that follow, and astute readers will notice some. Without giving things away, when you read the story, you meet characters from ‘Deviant Desire’ (Molly at the rope house, for example, and a couple of the future victims of the Ripper). You also meet Eddie Lovemount from books two to four. James Wright is mentioned, as is the Cleaver Street brothel from ‘Fallen Splendour.’ I even put in a meeting with a doctor who has a bushy moustache and who Fecker thinks was called Marked-land, or something. It is Dr Markland, of course, appearing a few years before his first proper appearance in book one.

What I also did, was to lay down some of Silas’ past which could later come back to haunt him, and that leads me onto…

My Next Writing Project

Tower Bridge, London, being built in circa 1889, as mentioned in Banyak & Fecks.

To be honest, I’ve been having trouble starting the next Clearwater book, and I think that’s because I stepped away from the series to add in the prequel. Having said that, I have written four different openings of the same story, sometimes three or four chapters, but can’t decide which way to go. The other day, I went back to an old file and reread one of my opening chapter ideas, and something went ‘ping!’ So, I am now starting on that version of the next story, the working title of which was ‘Men of a Similar Heart’, but which, I think, will now be something else.

I won’t say too much about book nine, as I hope it will become, but I will tell you that it currently starts in December 1889 at the second Clearwater Foundation Gala – as foreshadowed in ‘Bitter Bloodline’, which is taking place at Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre. I intend to tie the story in with something that happened in ‘Banyak & Fecks’ that involved a photographer… And that’s all I am going to say about that. If all goes well, you can look forward to the next Clearwater instalment early next year.

Meanwhile…

Giveaway

Before that, we have Christmas, and as you may know by now, we’re running a free book giveaway. Head to my Facebook page, give it a like and follow, and every day, you can enter a draw to win a signed paperback copy of ‘Banyak and Fecks.’ There’s a different quote from a blurb or book every day, and all you have to do is correctly identify the book to have your name put into the hat. You can enter every day, so you have 24 chances of winning.

And while all that is going on…

Home news – a trip to Canada

I have been posting five times per week on my personal blog, www.symidream.com

The view from our sitting room.

This is a blog I have kept up for the last 14 years (I think it is, certainly a long time), and there, I put up photos of the Greek island Neil and I live on, and write a little each day about what we’re up to. Sometimes I write more in-depth posts, and sometimes I just ramble about what I am writing. These past three weeks, I have been writing about the holiday we took back in early March before C-19 took over when we went to London and Canada. You’ll have to go back to the start of November to begin at post one, but from there, you can follow the story through to the last day (yesterday). From now on, I’ll be back to my usual kind of Symi blogging.

Symi harbour last week.

For us, here in our rented house overlooking a glorious harbour, it’s mainly been about being locked down (the Greek national lockdown is now running until at least the 14th December), and so we’ve not been doing much. We have been out for a few walks, Neil more so than me, and we’ve watched a lot of TV. I’ve also started back on building a plastic model kit. This one is of The Invisible Man, and the kitchen table is currently covered with paints and pieces while the air is perfumed with white spirit and glue.

Not me, but my boarding school as I remember it.

I used to make these kits when I was 13 at prep school and took up the hobby again a couple of years ago. I make the Universal Horror Model kits, originally produced by Aurora with glow in the dark pieces. These days, the originals are collectors’ items (I have two) and not exactly cheap. So, I make the remoulds. The best time to do this is when we have one of our Greek island biblical thunderstorms, as we do in the winter when we unplug the router and computers, and I can sit for hours fiddling with paintbrushes and let my imagination wander to create the next Clearwater scene.

The current state of the kitchen table.

We have also been preparing for Christmas, though no decorations yet. Every year for the past 16 or so, we’ve spent Christmas Day with Jenine (our bestie and now my PA), and her two children, our godsons. Hopefully, this year will be no different, and it’s always a day of madness and fun. I’ve been teaching our youngest godson, Harry (13), to play the piano, and we currently have lessons via WhatsApp. He’s only been learning a year and is already over halfway through his first grade, so I am a very proud god-dad.

Get In Touch

I’ll finish by asking you if you have anything you’d like me to write about in my weekly blog. Would you like to know more about my writing process, how I came to be living on a Greek island, what I am planning, what’s my favourite book…? Anything at all, just drop me an email to jack @ jacksonmarsh.com, or leave a comment on my Facebook page, and I’ll do my best to blog about what you want to read.

In the meantime, thanks for reading, thanks for your reviews of my books, stay safe, and most of all, keep reading.

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