A New Review on Historical Novel Society's Page

I'm delighted to see a great review of Limehouse Boys on the Historical Novel Society page. It is always a boost for an author to see a positive review of their work, especially when it is from someone who knows and enjoys history. Equally pleasing is the fact that my publisher, IndieGo Publishing, is running promotions on all my books on Amazon's UK Kindle Unlimited site and the sales figures show a very good response.

Limehouse Boys has been one of my favourite books to write to date. Researching it challenged many of the comfortable notions I had harboured about the life of ordinary people in London -- and by extension the rest of the UK -- in the early 19th Century. Hopefully readers will find I have managed to bring to life for them the sounds, smells and struggles of those not born to the proverbial silver spoon. 

I have just returned from a two week holiday on the Baltic Coast near Kiel, feeling very refreshed (the wind, the sea temperature and the odd snow shower saw to the 'refreshing' bits ...) and with several new ideas to explore for books. We were treated to the site of several 'tall ships' entering and leaving the Kiel bay, the most magnificent being the huge Russian training ship, Kruzenshtern, which arrived the day before we left. She made a fabulous sight passing majestically under almost full sail. Originally the sv Padua launched in 1926 for the German P-Line as one of the 'flying Ps' (Padua, Passat, Pommern, Peking and the ill fated Pamir, lost in 1957 in a hurricane, among their many ships named after places beginning with 'P'), she is the only one still in service. Passat is preserved at Travemunde near Lübeck, Pommern is a museum ship in Finland, and Peking is preserved in South Street Sea Port, New York.

Padua/Kruzenshtern was surrendered to Russia in 1946 as part of war reparations, and became a sail training ship in the 1960s after a spell as a hydrographic survey ship for the Soviet Navy.

The STS Kruzenshtern. Picture courtesy Wikipedia

So, here we are, back at the keyboard, with lots of notes, plenty of images and some new ideas to explore. 

Leave a comment