 I’m delighted to welcome Rosemary Hayes to my writing blog today as part of her book tour organised by the Coffee Pot Book Club. She’s written over fifty books for children and young adults. She writes in different genres from edgy teenage fiction, historical fiction, middle grade fantasy to chapter books for early readers and texts for picture books. Many of her books have won or been shortlisted for awards and several have been translated into different languages.
Rosemary has travelled widely but now lives in South Cambridgeshire. She has a background in publishing, having worked for Cambridge University Press before setting up her own company Anglia Young Books which she ran for some years. She has been a reader for a well-known authors’ advisory service and runs creative writing workshops for both children and adults.
Rosemary has now turned her hand to adult fiction and her historical novel ‘The King’s Command’ is about the terror and tragedy suffered by a French Huguenot family during the reign of Louis XIV. Traitor’s Game, the first book in the Soldier Spy trilogy set during the Napoleonic Wars, has recently been published.
Over to Rosemary to tell us all about 19th century spying!
When I was asked to write a series of novellas set during the Napoleonic Wars, I decided to concentrate on the secret war against Napoleon. That underbelly of every war where agents pass information to their handlers through secret channels, where things are not always what they seem, where the most unlikely people turn out to be working for the enemy. So, the work of spies is the main focus of my stories.
There was a network of Royalist spies in France collaborating with the British Government and which organised uprisings against the Republic which were brutally suppressed by the Minister of Police, Joseph Fouché. There were several attempts to assassinate Napoleon, one of which very nearly succeeded. It was the world’s first car bomb (or cart bomb). Britain was closely involved in the plot, which was almost certainly controlled from London.
 The plot of the rue Saint-Nicaise, an assassination attempt on the life of the First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, in Paris on 24 December 1800 (Public domain) Although there was high level espionage, there were also many ordinary French citizens, including fishing families, shopkeepers and others who wished to undermine Napoleon’s rule.
Then there were those who regularly crossed the Channel, legally, spying for their country’s enemies in plain sight. And, of course, there were double agents, too, one of whom is the mysterious traitor mentioned in my story.
Spies were active in every theatre of war but this first story of my trilogy is set only in France and England. Inevitably, both smugglers and fishermen (often one and the same) were involved in helping spies. At one point there was a spying headquarters in Jersey and one Jersey fisherman made nearly 200 trips over to France delivering spies, letters and money; he was eventually caught and executed but never revealed the names of his contacts.
Smuggling had always taken place along the South coast of England, too, and it was rife during the Napoleonic wars when contraband was taken both ways across the Channel as were spies and escaped prisoners of war. Hastings had a long tradition of smuggling and many of the fishing families augmented their incomes with smuggling activities. As part of my research I visited St Clement’s Caves, a large network of caves in Hastings where contraband was concealed and from where boats set off across to France.
The Alien Office, based in London, was the first comprehensive British secret service in the modern sense, and therefore the forerunner of not only the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) but also of MI5 and MI6. Although ostensibly part of the Home Office, the wider remit of The Alien Office included the domestic and external surveillance of foreign people of interest. John Reeves (one of the real people who appears in my story) was head of the Alien Office from 1803-1814 and had a network of agents who sent information back to their handlers. Messages were often written in code and/or in special inks to try and ensure that their contents would not be revealed should they be intercepted. Each intelligence agency had its own ciphers and ink composition.
For information on the spies and their networks, I consulted Tim Clayton’s excellent and extensively researched book ‘This Dark Business – The Secret War Against Napoleon. And, of course, Tom Williams’ series – the James Burke books. I’ve also visited the Hastings caves and been to Portugal and seen where Napoleon and Wellington had their headquarters at one time, staring at each other across the River Douro.
This, then, is the background to the first book in the Soldier Spy stories, Traitor’s Game, and in it we meet Will Fraser, bitter, disgraced and desperate to clear his name. In London he seeks out his brother, Jack, only to find that Jack has vanished and, in order to track him down, Will reluctantly becomes entangled in the murky world of espionage.
Would any of these methods of spying be relevant today? The advance of technology has obviously made everything more sophisticated but, in essence, has the sort of person recruited to spy for his or her country changed?
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Connect with Rosemary
Website: www.rosemaryhayes.co.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HayesRosemary
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosemary-Hayes/e/B00NAPAPZC
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What’s Traitor’s Game about?
 1808. Captain Will Fraser has just returned from the Front in the Peninsular War. He is disgraced and penniless, the victim of a conspiracy led by a jealous and influential officer. Falsely accused of insubordination and cowardice, he’s been dismissed from his regiment.
Fraser and Duncan Armstrong, his wounded sergeant, arrive in London to seek out Will’s brother, Jack, who works for King George’s Government.
But Jack has disappeared. No-one has seen him since he vanished from his lodgings a week ago. Friends and colleagues are baffled by his disappearance as is the young woman, Clara, who claims to be his wife.
Will is viciously attacked, seemingly mistaken for his brother, and only just escapes with his life. When news of this reaches Jack’s colleagues in government, Will is recruited to find his brother. He and Armstrong set out to follow a trail littered with half-truths and misinformation.
For their task is not quite what it seems.
Will closely resembles his brother and it becomes evident that he is being used as a decoy to flush out Jack’s enemies. These are enemies of the state, for Jack Fraser is a spy and his colleagues believe he has uncovered evidence which will lead to the identity of a French spymaster embedded in the British Government.
Will’s search leads him to France but in this murky world of espionage, nothing is straightforward. The soldier turned spy must unmask a traitor, before it’s too late.
Buy this book here:
Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/bwwEee
Also available on #KindleUnlimited
My thoughts
A cracking story! Hero Will caught my attention immediately. He refuses to wallow in self-pity although I think he has plenty of grounds to do so. He knows he’s been treated unfairly but he refuses to complain even though his career has been peremptorily ended. We see how Will copes with street danger, a deeply emotional encounter with his brother’s wife whom he has loved since childhood, and the world of trickery, danger and slippery characters.
The period detail is rich and authentic, not only in the description of the London he lands in, but the practical side of life like washing, watching the pennies and renting a room. You walk through the street with Will and his sidekick, Armstrong, and see it as it is in vivid detail. The secondary characters, from actresses to the powerful, are deftly drawn.
The author handles the plot well, with good pacing. I held my breath several times! Although shorter than a standard novel, it’s an excellent read and I will be looking forward to the next episode, crossing my fingers that such an honourable, courageous hero.
The story is so good that I hesitate to mention that there are some editing issues. However, that is the responsibility of the publisher and should be remedied. I hope the next Will Fraser adventure is served better – the character certainly merits better treatment.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. As a result, you’ll be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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Briefly, possession and omission. Yep, it’s that easy.
People get very hot under the collar about apostrophes, me included. First my mother, then my wonderful English teachers – Mrs Campbell and Miss Robson – eradicated any nonsense about misuse out of me at an early age. Like other punctuation marks, apostrophes clarify, especially in English which has only very faint traces of ever having been an inflected language with nice case endings to indicate what a word is doing in a sentence. Genitive and accusative cases are particularly useful in Latin and German!
Anyway…
Let’s look at possession
Not the satanic kind, but people often think apostrophe use can be the work of the devil…
Baseline: If the person or thing doing the possessing is singular, or if you are dealing with a plural not ending in ‘s’ such as children, you follow it with an apostrophe and an ‘s’. If they are plural, and that plural ends in ‘s’, you just add an apostrophe.
Luckily, most English plurals end in ‘s’, even if some add ‘–es’ to the singular noun such as ditches, perches or varnishes and some by changing a ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘–es’ such as tragedies, ponies or enemies. The slightly awkward squad includes words that have an ‘f’ at or near the end which change to a ‘v’ such as knife to knives and life to lives.
Old English derived inflected plurals such as children, geese and mice continue to haunt us. Then there are the Latins… cactus to cacti, medium to media, codex to codices and formula to formulae. The jury is out on referendum to referenda/referendums, but I prefer the former. The even more awkward squad includes words ending in ‘–is’ in the singular and ‘–es’ in the plural such as crisis to crises and in ‘—on’ in the singular and ‘—a’ in the plural such as phenomenon to phenomena.
A few general examples:
The computer’s screen was blank.
The ponies’ feed arrived on time.
The children’s toys were everywhere.The witness’s testimony (the witnesses’ testimonies when there are several witnesses, but more later on plurals)
If you have a noun where the singular is the same as the plural such as grapefruit, salmon or police, treat it as if it were singular and add apostrophe + ‘s’. e.g. grapefruit’s tartness, salmon’s journey, the police’s many tasks.
A good trick to check whether it’s a true possessive apostrophe is to switch it back to the simple, if awkward format in your head:
The screen of the computer
The feed of the ponies
The toys of the children
Proper names
It’s a nightmare, aka ‘personal choice’. The Apostrophe Protection Society site shows the following:
When the name ends in an ‘s’, you either add an apostrophe and ‘s’ or just an apostrophe. The choice depends on the style guide that you’re following and, to some extent, the country in which you live. Thus:
James’s pen or James’ pen
Mr Jones’s van or Mr Jones’ van
Jesus’s disciples or Jesus’ disciples
Keats’s poems or Keats’ poems
Some guides say that we only add an apostrophe and ‘s’ if the possessive form is pronounced with an extra ‘s’ sound. Generally, most guides prefer the apostrophe-s style.
The Modern Humanities Research Association says [some examples cropped]:
The possessive of personal names ending in a pronounced –s or –z is formed in the normal way by adding an apostrophe and s: Berlioz’s symphonies, Cervantes’s works, Dickens’s characters.
French names ending in an unpronounced –s, –x, or –z also follow the normal rule and take an apostrophe and s: Cixous’s criticism, Descartes’s works, Malraux’s style, Cherbuliez’s novels
The possessive of names ending in -us also conforms to the normal rule: Claudius’s successor, Herodotus’s Histories, Jesus’s parables, an empire greater than Darius’s
However, the possessive of Moses and of Greek names ending in –es (particularly those having more than two syllables) is usually formed by means of the apostrophe alone: under Moses’ leadership, Demosthenes’ speeches, Sophocles’ plays, Xerxes’ campaigns
Brand names and shop names
They do their own thing. The fuss when Waterstone’s changed to Waterstones was bitter and long-lasting. Boots (the Chemist) was founded by John Boot in the 19th century, but I can’t find any sign of an apostrophe even in old photos. McDonald’s holds on tightly to its apostrophe. J.Sainsbury morphed into Sainsbury’s and I’m delighted to see it has an apostrophe. The best thing is to check the companies’ websites.
But this is on a van is wrong on so many levels (or should that be level’s? 😉 )
 Aaaargh! Sins of omission
The second main use of an apostrophe is to show that one or more letters have been left out. We use them every day: can’t, didn’t and haven’t, where the apostrophe indicates the missing ‘o’ of not. Other short forms include: I’ve, you’re, she’s, they’ll and we’d, which are abbreviated forms of I have, you are, she is, they will and we had/we would/should.
These are informal and most often appear in speech or in fiction as dialogue or internal thoughts. I use them when writing in the first person as I’m looking through the characters’ eyes and am in their minds. (I also use them when I’m talking to you as I think we’re on friendly, chatty terms.) Short forms such as won’t, shan’t and can’t are short for the quite long expressions will not, shall not and cannot, which are missing more letters than the simple ‘o’ of not. English is such an odd language…
Dates (groans)
Numbers in dates can be a minefield. A decade has a plural ‘s’ – no apostrophe – thus, 1950s. If you want to write it in the number form of the Fifties, then it’s the ’50s. Talking historically, we say the ’45 Rebellion or refer to a graduating cohort as the class of ’89.
Apostrophes that have vanished into the night
Yonks ago, the thing you talked into with a handset and a dial was called a telephone. Then we shortened it to a ‘phone. Now we call it a phone and nobody blinks an eyelid. Aeroplane became ‘plane and now you travel by plane. Influenza used to be a killer disease, then we got vaccinations against the ‘flu and now we have our annual flu jab.
But there are many reported hot disputes and popular protests when local signs lose their apostrophe. Is it St.James’s Avenue or St James Avenue? Although I’d prefer full-throttle punctuation on such signs, I’m ducking out of the argument. You decide.
Let’s talk about it’s and its
This is one that often results in an outburst of grammar rage, especially on social media. Irritatingly, wordprocessing, phone messaging and blogging software often inserts a completely unnecessary apostrophe while you’re deep into creating your sentence. Although called officially AutoCorrect, I have renamed it AutoCorrupt.
Okay…
It’s is a contraction of it is or it has and uses an apostrophe to show that contraction: It’s important not to get the wrong end of the stick.
Its is a possessive personal pronoun (like my, our or his) indicating ownership, or possession, or association of something, and does NOT take an apostrophe: The cat ignored its dry food and my patience evaporated.
If you’re unsure whether you need it’s with an apostrophe, just expand the contraction to ‘it is’ or ‘it has’ as appropriate and see if it makes sense: The cat ignored it is dried food doesn’t make sense and is obviously incorrect.
One last thing: there’s NO circumstance where you put an apostrophe after its.
Let’s boldly go into your/you’re territory
As with its and it’s, one’s a possessive pronoun and the other contains a verb.
You’re is a contraction for you are, and therefore takes an apostrophe: You’re looking a bit fed up today, i.e. you are looking, etc.
Your is possessive (like my or their), and doesn’t take an apostrophe: Your dinner’s on the table and I’ve already eaten mine, i.e. Your dinner is on the table (but I’ve polished my dinner off).
What apostrophes are NOT
Plurals
Plurals seem to cause a lot of unhappiness. One thing is clear – they do not need apostrophes. Satsuma’s, tomato’s, potato’s make me think of nails scraping down a blackboard. Just for the record, they should be satsumas, tomatoes, potatoes. If you’re referring to something about the satsuma, then the possession rule applies and you add apostrophe ‘s’. So you can say: ‘That satsuma’s skin looks soft. It must be going rotten.’
Plural MPs, GCSEs, IDs, TVs are perfectly happy without any apostrophe. They’re also correct. 🙂 If you’re talking about something that belongs to them or associated with them, i.e. possession, then the usual apostrophe rules apply, e.g. MPs’ pay, GCSEs’ value to employers, IDs’ numbers are at the top of the card. (Note that the apostrophe comes after the plural as we’re talking about a lot of MPs, GCSEs and IDs. If we were referring to only one MP or TV, then it would be the MP’s assistant and the TV’s aerial. )
Being English, the language has odd exceptions. One is: minding your p’s and q’s. Some write do’s and don’ts. The second, don’ts is dead correct; the first isn’t and I always write dos and don’ts, but then I’m super-picky. 😉
Finding out more…
This has been a quick run down. I’ve checked my workings, as they say, with some People Who Know These Things and I heartily recommend all of them. As I can’t type to save myself, let alone the world, there may be typos. These are solely my fault.
The Apostrophe Protection Society: https://www.apostrophe.org.uk/ They send a fun newsletter out each month – do join!
The MHRA Style Guide, The Modern Humanities Research Association (online and print): https://www.mhra.org.uk/style/contents.html For more formal writing, but very sound advice for any general writer.
The Accidental Apostrophe, Caroline Taggart https://www.mombooks.com/book/the-accidental-apostrophe/ (print and ebook) She has a clear and witty explanation of everything apostrophe-related.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Spies and secret agents are today the stuff of film, television and novels. We are more than intrigued by the countless documentaries and non-fiction accounts of espionage, deception secret operations, especially featuring gadgets, communications and tradecraft. Well, today Elizabeth St.John visits my blog to tells us that nothing really isn’t new under the sun.
Her critically acclaimed historical fiction novels tell the stories of her ancestors: extraordinary women whose intriguing kinship with England’s kings and queens brings an intimately unique perspective to Medieval, Tudor, and Stuart times.
Inspired by family archives and residences from Lydiard Park to the Tower of London, Elizabeth spends much of her time exploring ancestral portraits, diaries, and lost gardens. And encountering the occasional ghost. But that’s another story.
Elizabeth’s works include The Lydiard Chronicles, a trilogy set in 17th-century England during the Civil War, and The Godmother’s Secret, which unravels the medieval mystery of the missing princes in the Tower of London. Her latest release, The King’s Intelligencer, follows Franny Apsley’s perilous quest to uncover the truth behind the sudden discovery of the princes’ bones. In Charles II’s court of intrigue and deceit, Franny must decide what she’ll risk—for England’s salvation, her family’s safety, and her own happiness.
Living between California, England, and the past, Elizabeth is the International Ambassador for The Friends of Lydiard Park, an English charity dedicated to conserving and enhancing this beautiful centuries-old country house and park. As a curator for The Lydiard Archives, she is constantly looking for an undiscovered treasure to inspire her next novel.
Over to Elizabeth to reveal the intrigues swirling around about 17th century undercover agents…
The inspiration for The King’s Intelligencer emerged from my research for The Godmother’s Secret, which delves into the story of the missing princes in the Tower of London. I found myself spending time in Westminster Abbey, particularly in the Chapel of the Innocents, where Sir Christopher Wren’s white marble urn is displayed, just by the glorious tomb of Elizabeth I.
Commissioned in 1674 by Charles II, the urn supposedly holds the bones of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York—the two princes who disappeared in the Tower of London. The inscription claims that these brothers being confined in the Tower of London, and there stifled with pillows, were privately and meanly buried, by the order of their perfidious uncle Richard the Usurper. The interred bones were found in the Tower after being buried for 191 years. But as I stood near the urn, only steps away from where my character Franny Apsley’s real-life parents, Sir Allen Apsley and Frances Apsley, are buried, I couldn’t help but question this official story.
This curiosity led me to Helen Maurer’s paper, “Bones in the Tower: A Discussion of Time, Place and Circumstance”, which raises doubts about the authenticity of the bones discovered in the Tower. Further investigation, including Annette Carson’s article “The Bones in the Urn,” provided even more questions. What if these bones weren’t the princes’ at all, but a politically convenient discovery for King Charles II to solidify his claim to the throne? After all, this was a time of intense political intrigue, where religion, power, and royal loyalty were in constant conflict. Reinforcing that no crime against the crown goes undiscovered could only strengthen Charles’s position.
The 17th century was a time of deep religious divides between Protestants and Catholics, and the political landscape was shaped by these tensions. While King Charles II outwardly practiced Protestantism, he was notably tolerant of Catholics. In fact, he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. His brother, James II, was openly Catholic, a fact that led to his short-lived reign before being deposed by his Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange.
It was in this atmosphere of religious and political conflict that espionage flourished. The idea of “intelligencers” emerged, and their role was to gather information—often through subtle means, and more frequently, unofficially. A friend once joked that intelligencers were the 17th-century equivalent of people who sit in coffee shops eavesdropping on conversations, and that description resonated with me. It perfectly fit not only the world of historical espionage but also my character, Franny Apsley, who would thrive in such an environment.
In real life, Franny’s family was deeply involved in this secretive world. Her parents, Sir Allen and Frances Apsley, as well as her cousin Nan Wilmot, Countess of Rochester, were involved in espionage during the English Civil War, before Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. Allen was one of the founders of The Sealed Knot, while Nan was frequently know to “befuddle” Cromwell with her subterfuges to save her beloved Ditchley Park from sequestration. Later, Franny’s brother, Peter Apsley, was listed in household records as an intelligencer for both Charles and his brother, James II, receiving large payments for his covert work. These activities helped form the backbone of The King’s Intelligencer.
I’ve always enjoyed novels that incorporate historical texts and hidden meanings concealed within paintings, and in The King’s Intelligencer, I drew on elements from Lydiard Park’s history, including ancient books and painted monuments. Franny Apsley’s search through family documents and memorials offered rich opportunities for clues to the real mystery of the missing princes, helping her sharpen her investigative skills.
Wanting to not only write about family history, but place it in the context of the wider national landscape, I incorporated into the novel another fascinating discovery – King Charles II’s Secret Treaty of Dover. In this treaty, Charles secretly agreed to declare himself a Catholic in exchange for financial support from King Louis XIV of France. Although I fictionalized elements of another treaty between James and the French King, it was well-known at the time that Charles and James were deeply involved in secret negotiations with France, many of which were hidden from the public for over a century.
Researching family history can be an immersive and often surprising journey. While working on Written in Their Stars,part of The Lydiard Chronicles, I uncovered a family tradition of spycraft. The novel follows three extraordinary women—Luce Hutchinson, Frances Apsley, and Nan Wilmot—who played active roles in shaping history through rebellion and espionage during the English Civil War. This earlier generation of ancestors involved in intelligence work for King Charles fascinated me, and I knew I wanted to explore it further. Who better, I thought, than Nan Wilmot to pass the mantle of espionage to her young cousin, Franny.
The King’s Intelligencer connects these family stories in an immersive historical novel filled with conspiracy, passion, and courage. Following Franny Apsley as she embarks on a dangerous quest for truth, the novel blends fiction with fact, inspired by the hidden history I uncovered in both public records and private archives. This novel is a companion to The Godmother’s Secret and The Lydiard Chronicles, continuing the exploration of secrets buried in the past.
——————–
Connect with Elizabeth
Website: https://www.elizabethjstjohn.com/
Twitter: https://x.com/ElizStJohn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethJStJohn/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethjstjohn/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethjstjohn/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@elizabethjstjohn
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/elizabethstjohn.bsky.social
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/elizabeth-st-john
Amazon Author Page: https://geni.us/AmazonElizabethStJohn
Goodreads: https://geni.us/GoodreadsElizStJohn
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What’s The King’s Intelligencer about?
 London, 1674: When children’s bones are unexpectedly unearthed in the Tower of London, England’s most haunting mystery—the fate of the missing princes—is reignited.
Franny Apsley, trusted confidante to Charles II’s beloved niece and heir, Lady Mary Stuart, is caught up in the court’s excitement surrounding the find. Yet, as a dark family secret comes to light, Franny realises the truth behind the missing princes is far more complex—and dangerous—than anyone suspects. Recruited by her formidable cousin Nan Wilmot, Dowager Countess of Rochester, to discover the truth behind the bones, Franny is thrust into the shadowy world of intelligencers. But her quest is complicated by an attraction to the charismatic court artist Nicholas Jameson, a recent arrival from Paris who harbours secrets of his own.
Pursued by Nicholas, Franny searches for evidence hidden in secret family letters and paintings, and uncovers a startling diplomatic plot involving Lady Mary, which causes Franny to question her own judgment, threatens the throne, and sets England on a course for war. With only her courage and the guidance of an enigmatic spy within the royal household, Franny must decide how far she will go to expose the truth—and whether that truth will lead to England’s salvation or her own heartbreak.
In a glittering and debauched society where love is treacherous and loyalty masked, Franny must navigate a world where a woman’s voice is often silenced and confront the ultimate question: What is she willing to risk for the sake of her country, her happiness, and her family’s safety?
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Where to find The King’s Intelligencer
Buy from Amazon: https://geni.us/KingsIntelligencer (Universal link)
Also available on #KindleUnlimited (subscription)
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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I was delighted to be invited to speak at the International Dublin Writers’ Festival again. This year, the theme was the creative well, something essential to good writing, but a slippery one to grasp. In essence, it’s the part of you that feeds your imagination. If it’s kept at a healthy level, it will help ideas for your writing flow to you more easily.
 With Laurence O’Bryan, Dublin Writers’ Conference organiser The audience was lovely. After my talk, we had some fascinating chats about the writing process which is always a pleasure. When I was starting on my writing journey, I received generous help from established writers. Now, I love giving back my experiences – good and bad!
Whilst there, I filled my own creative well by visiting the Book of Kells, including the new digital displays with its floating images!.
Of course, a visit to the Long Room library in Trinity College was compulsory! A very impressive place…
And I loved this spiral staircase. It will doubtless appear in a future novel or short story!
And I couldn’t resist buying this beautiful mug as a souvenir.
Dublin is a literary city full of bookshops brimming with a comprehensive range of every kind of book. I was lucky enough to be invited to Katherine Mezzacappa’s book launch at Hodges Figgis.
I was sorry to leave Dublin, its writers and its atmosphere, but I hope to return soon!
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Today, I’m delighted to welcome Deborah Swift to the blog as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour. She’s a USA TODAY bestselling author of twenty books who is passionate about the past. Before becoming a writer, Deborah was a costume designer for the BBC. Now she lives in a former English school house in a village full of 17th century houses, near the glorious Lake District. After taking an MA in Creative Writing, she enjoys mentoring aspiring novelists and runs an award-winning historical fiction blog.
Deborah loves to write about how extraordinary events in history have transformed the lives of ordinary people and how the events of the past can live on in her books and still resonate today. The Poison Keeper featured the Renaissance poisoner Giulia Tofana, and won a Wishing Shelf Book of the Decade Award and a Coffee Pot Book Club Gold Medal. Her most recent books are The Silk Code and The Shadow Network both set in the Second World War.
Over to Deborah!
What attracted you to the difficult year of 1944 and to the Netherlands?
I had started the series with Nancy Callaghan – a fictional Secret Agent from the SOE (Special Operations Executive) – and the first novel was set during the scandal of Englandspiel, which was a disaster where British agents were captured by the Nazis when they were parachuted into Holland. I wanted to continue Nancy’s story and so searched for a period of the war where the Dutch people were under the most pressure. This turned out to be The Hunger Winter (Hongerwinter in Dutch) – the freezing winter of 1944 when half of Holland was liberated, and the other half was left starving behind enemy lines. It struck me that this period of the war when the Nazis knew they would be defeated, but the Dutch people were ever more desperate, would provide plenty of opportunity for conflict. Also, it showed both sides – the Resistance and the Gestapo – in their least organised and most chaotic period of the war, both sides fighting like cornered rats.
How did you prepare to write Nancy as a Nazi and to resist the urge to make Detlef Keller and Fritz Schneider stereotype SS officers?
 Truus Oversteegen with Sten gun Nancy Callaghan is a fictional character but followed in the footsteps of many real women who did this kind of work, pretending to be Nazi sympathisers. One of the most famous is the French agent Jeannie Rousseau, who spoke fluent German, and played on a German officer’s desire to show off in order to unearth details about the development of the new V2 ballistic missiles. For information about how it might have felt to be a Dutch agent befriending a Nazi for the Resistance, I used the book Seducing and Killing Nazis by Sophie Poldermans, which tells the stories of the Oversteegen sisters and Hannie Schaft who undertook these dangerous roles.
The Nazis in the book are after all people under their uniforms, not stereotypes, with different desires and different attitudes to the war. Detlef sees it as something that must be ‘got through’ before he can continue his life, whereas Fritz Schneider (his boss) sees it as a path to greater influence. Both soon discover their preconceptions are wrong. I used a variety of research mostly from non-fiction books about Germany in the war. Two that I found particularly helpful were The SS Officer’s Armchair by Daniel Lee and The Nazi Officer’s Wife by Edith Hahn.
How did you research clothes and food?
Most of my research was done through books. One illustrated book that I used extensively was The Dutch Resistance 1940 – 45 by Michel Wentling and Klaas Castelein, which showed me exactly which uniforms were worn by the different branches of the Nazi collaborators, and also the clothes worn by men and women of the Resistance.
Also extremely helpful were eyewitness accounts and biographies of people who had survived the Hunger Winter, such as The Hunger Winter: Fighting Famine in the Occupied Netherlands, 1944–1945 by Ingrid de Zwarte, and The Occupied Garden which is a family memoir of war-torn Holland. Both these describe the indignities of digging up tulip bulbs for food, or people dying in the streets if cold or starvation because fuel and food supplies were so short.
What are the challenges of thinking like a 1940s woman in an ‘unwomanly’ role?
I had a few difficulties with this in the editing process, because what was considered ‘womanly’ in 1940 is very different from what is considered womanly today. I was encouraged by one of my editors not to have the man open a door for a woman, or have her cook food in the kitchen, as it reduced her agency – but I argued that in the 1940s these were typical behaviours, and the woman couldn’t be depicted as just today’s woman in 1940’s clothes.
Being a woman in a man’s world was a necessity in the Resistance when the leader of your network was eliminated by the Nazis. This happened to Marie-Madeleine Fourcade who was the leader of the French Resistance network Alliance, under the code name Hérisson (Hedgehog) after the arrest of its former leader, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau. Hedgehog continued to lead the network, but had some difficulty persuading hr British contacts that she was in fact in charge. Her memoir is published as Noah’s Ark.
In Occupied Holland most of the men were either collaborators with the Nazi regime, or had been removed to Germany to work in German factories. Women were forced to take on the roles of saboteurs, assassins, and wireless operatives simply because men were too obvious and would be immediately deported if discovered. They were also able to travel by bicycle as couriers, taking messages and even weaponry between Resistance cells.
The role of Nancy’s partner Tom, who doesn’t think things through and ends up in serious trouble, is designed to contrast with Nancy and her role in planning and running a network. Most of the women undertook these roles out of necessity, and they didn’t consider themselves particularly brave. I think they were psychologically tougher than men expected, and this is still true of women in conflict situations today – that they are easily underestimated. There has however been an increasing interest in female agents of WW2, and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to write this series.
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Connect with Deborah
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/swiftstory @swiftstory
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authordeborahswift/
Website: www.deborahswift.com
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deborahswift1/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/deborah-swift
Amazon: https://author.to/DeborahSwift
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What’s Operation Tulip about?
 Holland, 1944: Undercover British agent Nancy Callaghan has been given her toughest case yet. A key member of the Dutch resistance has been captured, and Nancy must play the role of a wealthy Nazi to win over a notorious SS officer, Detlef Keller, and gain crucial information.
England: Coding expert Tom Lockwood is devastated that the Allies have failed to push back the Nazis, leaving Northern Holland completely cut off from the rest of Europe, and him from his beloved Nancy. Desperate to rescue the love of his life, Tom devises Operation Tulip, a plan to bring Nancy home.
But as Nancy infiltrates the Dutch SS, she finds herself catching the eye of an even more senior member of the Party. Is Nancy in too deep, or can Tom reach her before she gets caught?
Inspired by the true events of occupied Holland during WW2, don’t miss this utterly gripping story of love, bravery and sacrifice.
Buy the ebook: https://mybook.to/Tulip
Bookshop links: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/operation-tulip-ww2-secret-agent-series-deborah-swift
My thoughts…
In the shifting sands of trust and the desperation brought about by hunger and isolation Nancy Callaghan continues her mission of resistance in North Holland in the Hunger winter of 1944/45. She seems to have nine lives, but much of this is down to her competence and instincts honed in shatteringly dangerous situations. She is not an unbelievable Lara Croft, but a well-drawn flesh and blood woman shrinking from the ramifications of her mission, but carrying it out despite her fear – true courage.
Her boyfriend, Tom, an unassuming code expert, but lacking the steel to work as an agent in the field, wangles his way into Holland too ‘rescue’ her, but his unpreparedness in face of the dangers brings its own danger.
Deborah Swift draws these two characters beautifully and in depth. She does throw Nancy into such dangerous places that I almost couldn’t bear to read on, but Nancy is clever and cool in extracting herself and playing on the arrogance and vulnerability of the German authorities she infiltrates.
The author does not flinch from describing the terrible famine in occupied Holland or bombing and fire damage, emphasising the distressing impact on people with but without gratuitous detail.
This is a writer who can write deeply and fluently, showing characters, action, landscape and dilemmas cleverly and in a way to draw the reader into the centre of the story. Recommended!
Follow Deborah’s book tour!
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines and taste world the latest contemporary thriller Double Identity… Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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