Tag: historical fiction

#BlogTour #GuestPost After the Rising & Before the Fall by Orna Ross

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After the Rising &Before the Fall Centenary Edition Blog TourToday I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour to celebrate the special edition of After the Rising & Before the Fall by the acclaimed Irish historical novelist and poet, Orna Ross. It marks the centenary of the Irish Civil War of 1922/3 the events of which form the background to the books. Based on Orna’s own family history, the book was an instant bestseller when it was first published by Penguin Ireland 20 years ago. It has now been reissued by the author and is also being made available for the first time in audiobook format.

I’m delighted to bring you a guest post in which Orna writes about the events that inspired the novels, including her own family history.

WinAnd there’s also a giveaway (open internationally) with a chance to win a signed paperback copy of After the Rising & Before the Fall. Enter before 30th June 2022 by following this link Orna Ross: After the Rising & Before the Fall Signed Book Giveaway

After-the-Rising-and-Before-the-Fall-Cover-EBOOK-scaled-1About the Book

A love forbidden by family. A feud spanning generations. A woman still yearning for freedom.

Twenty years after she was driven away from her family and the only man she ever truly loved, Jo Devereux has returned to the small Irish village where she grew up. And this time, she wants answers.

What happened to her family during the Irish Civil War? Did her great-uncle’s best friend really shoot him dead? And what did this “war of the brothers” mean for mothers, sisters and daughters?

Searching through papers bequeathed by her estranged mother, Jo uncovers astonishing truths about her grandmother and great-aunt – secrets of a cold-blooded murder with consequences that ricocheted down the generations into her own life.

Urged on by Rory O’Donovan, her lost love and the son of her family’s sworn enemies, Jo is tempted to reignite the fires of rebellion. Can she ever go back to the life she’d made for herself in San Francisco? Or will what she’s learning about her heritage incite her to cast off caution–and claim what should have been hers?

Find After the Rising & Before the Fall on Goodreads

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After the Rising & Before the Fall by Orna Ross – A Guest Post

In William Faulkner’s words, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

In 1923, my father’s uncle was shot dead in the civil war known in Ireland as “The War of the Brothers.” I wrote this book because I wanted to know how but mainly to explore the deep silences around the event – why nobody talked about this civil war which I knew, from my fiery great-aunt, had been a “war of the sisters” too.

Silences

I grew up in a village in the south-eastern corner of Ireland, called Murrintown. Back then it was tiny – no more than a handful of houses, a church, a post office, and our shop and pub – but small as it was, an unspoken divide separated its few families.

As children, we knew who was one of ‘us’. Nobody put into words who or what ‘we’ were, but we carried the divide within us. We were born it and we passed it on, without asking why. I knew from my fiery aunt that it was something to do with being a republican, but I wasn’t quite sure what a republican was.

Our Irish school history books were full of our glorious Easter 1916 Rising against British rule, of the glorious War of Independence of 1918 to ’21, of our glorious admission into the League of Nations in 1924. But the Civil War of 1922/23? That was a blank page.  And, as my father’s uncle had been killed in that war (murdered, my great-aunt said), that was the one I wanted to know more about.

Was it true that he’d been shot dead by his best friend? That he’d been killed because he was in the IRA (the “old IRA” who were heroes, I was told, not the new IRA who were then bombing Northern Ireland and the UK)? How could this have happened? My persistent questions got vague answers. Nobody knew anything. Least said, soonest mended. Whatever you say, say nothing.

Someday, I told my friend who sat beside me in school, I was going to write a book about all this. Then I grew up, and rejected it all – the public, nationalist politics and the private family history. I left home, went to university, found feminism and a different way of thinking about everything.

When you reject something, though, you’re not indifferent – as I learned when, approaching middle-age, I set about fulfilling that long-ago vow to my friend, and beginning that long-promised book, though my aunt was now dead.

I turned to old County Wexford newspapers, old documents in libraries and archives, old books written by those who’d been part of the conflicts of that time. I began to make notes. And somewhere along the line, research and memory gave way to imagination. I never did find out what really happened to my great-uncle. It turned out that I was writing a novel.

In my book, I tell the story of another family, the Devereux-Parles, similar-but-different to my family. The narrator is a progressive young woman, Jo Devereux, similar-but-different to me, tracing her family history back to a similar-but-different event to the one that shadowed my childhood.

Centenary Edition

It’s now almost 100 years since the events they describe happened and today Ireland is at the end of a ten-year programme commemorating “the many significant centenaries” of the decade from 1913 to 1923”, including the suffrage movement, the trade union struggles, the Easter Rising of 1916, the foundation of the Irish Free State, and they promise, the Civil War.

What happened to Jo, her ancestors and descendants, has now grown into a three-volume saga, After the Rising, Before the Fall and In the Hour, covering the lives of five generations of women, across two continents. I will launch the third volume of the book next year, in 2023, 100 years after my uncle was shot.

As I look back over the writing of this trilogy, I see now why it had to be a novel. Only the inventions of fiction could contain the truths of that time – and its ambivalent legacy. Only fiction could recreate those people who’d been wiped out of the history books. I hope they, and their way of life, will live again for you as you read.

So, it felt timely to re-release a centenary edition of the first two volumes of this Irish trilogy in advance of publishing the third and final book of this story.

Orna RossAbout the Author

Orna Ross is a bestselling and award-winning independent author. She writes historical fiction – mostly multi-generational murder mysteries – inspirational poetry and, as Orna A Ross, creative and publishing guides for authors. Born and raised in County Wexford, in the south-east corner of Ireland, she now lives in London and in St Leonard’s-on-Sea, in the south-east corner of England. In 2012, she founded the award-winning non-profit organization, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), with her husband and business partner.

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#BlogTour #BookReview Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings by Tony Fairweather @RandomTTours

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Twenty Eight Pounds BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings by Tony Fairweather. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to HopeRoad Publishing for my digital review copy. Do check out the Instagram post by my tour buddy for today, Lisa at numberslady_reads.

Twenty Eight Pounds Final CoverAbout the Book

It is 1948, and post-war Britain is on her knees. The call has gone out to the British Empire for volunteers to help rebuild the ‘Mother Country,’ and young men and women from across the Caribbean have been quick to respond, paying the considerable sum of £28 10s to board HMT Empire Windrush – the ‘ship of dreams’ that will take them to their new lives.

Meet Mavis, a 22-year-old Trinidadian nurse who just wants to see the world. Chef, the best cook on the island, desperate to get to London and his wounded soldier son. Norma, who wants to teach the British how to teach, and her funny best friend Lucretia, who is sure that every man wants her, and that English food is very… English.

Their epic journey took two weeks, but for some it was a lifetime. Friendships were made and broken. There were love affairs and fights; dancing and dominoes; gambling and racism. Many of the young people on board that ship had never left their parents or their parishes, let alone their islands. Their lives would never be the same again.

Format: Hardback (320 pages)      Publisher: HopeRoad Publishing
Publication date: 26th May 2022  Genre: Historical Fiction

Find Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings on Goodreads

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My Review

Set largely aboard the HMT Empire Windrush, what the book does particularly well is demonstrate that those who travelled from the Caribbean were not a homogenous group. They come from different islands each of which have their own unique culture. The passengers also have a variety of reasons for deciding to travel to England. For some it’s out of necessity or to be reunited with family. For others it’s a desire for a new life or a way to make some money before returning home. Many of the passengers are – rightly, as it turns out – wary of the reaction that will greet them upon their arrival in England.

Although the Second World War is over, its legacy is still felt. For example, amongst the passengers is a group of recently demobbed West Indian soldiers who feel their contribution to the war effort has been overlooked, even belittled by the authorities and by the British soldiers they fought alongside. The most stark reminder of the longlasting impact of war is the character of Mickey.

There are a lot of characters to keep track of and I found myself having to create a list of who was who, who was travelling with whom and, latterly, who was pairing up with whom. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the frequent switching between different characters within a single chapter (with no identifiable breaks, at least in my digital copy). At times this became rather confusing. Longer sections from the point of view of a smaller number of characters would have made me feel I’d got to know them better. Having said that, my favourite characters were probably Mavis and Chef, along with the Captain of the HMT Empire Windrush who we discover has reasons of his own to fear discrimination.

Much of the dialogue is rendered in the patois of Jamaica and Trinidad, and although this gives a wonderful sense of authenticity I occasionally found myself having to reread a sentence. There is however a useful glossary at the end of the book. For those who are sensitive to such things, there is frequent use of strong language and some descriptions of sexual intimacy.

I enjoyed the moments of humour in the book, such as the Caribbean passengers’ univerally negative opinion of the food served up by the British chefs. Given most of the passengers are young, there’s plenty of dancing, drinking and eyeing up of the opposite sex. There are moments of melodrama and some serious topics are covered ranging from racist abuse to sexual assault and even murder.

I would liken Twenty-Eight Pounds Ten Shillings to a Caribbean cocktail, perhaps a rum punch.  It has some fruity elements, an authentic flavour and a generous slug of stronger stuff.

In three words: Authentic, dramatic, characterful

Try something similar: The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon

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Tony Fairweather Author PicAbout the Author

Tony Fairweather was born in Clapham, the son of Jamaican parents. He opened one of the first Black bookshops in the UK, before going on to work for the Voice newspaper, where he managed the Voice
book club. In 1989, Tony founded ‘The Write Thing’, an events company established to promote Black authors, which led to his working with a veritable who’s who of the Black literary world, including Bernardine Evaristo, Dr Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Terry McMillan, and many more. Tony is also the founder and curator of the Windrush Collection, a touring exhibition of artefacts associated with the Windrush generation. He lives in South London.

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