I’ve never written ‘The End’ on the final page of any of my novels. My feeling is that it’s not the end of the story unless all the characters have died. As I’m writing romances there is always a happy ever after, or at the very least, a happy for now. Both of those options leave the story open for a continuation.
In March I joined two of my Affinity colleagues on their podcast…Triple A Storytelling…to discuss series and spin-offs. Both Annette Mori and Ali Spooner have written many more of these than I have. But we had a good discussion and I talked about The Starling Hill Trilogy, which began as a one-off story. It soon became apparent that other characters needed their stories told, so books two and three took off from there.
Changing Times, published in 2022, was a spin-off from Changing Perspectives which gave me the chance to explore the development of a new generation of characters – as well as revisiting the old ones. The first book was set in 1993, so I moved the story on thirty years. The younger people inhabit a different world. In the early nineties, not everyone had personal email accounts or mobile phones. The now all-pervasive social media didn’t exist.
In Changing Perspectives, Dani Barker is a graphic designer for an ad agency. She creates storyboards manually, but computers are starting to take over. I included a scene where she tries to familiarise herself with some design software. (She’s not convinced it will ever catch on!) In Changing Times, the ad agency is now a mixed media company run by Dani’s niece, Holly.
The best part of writing sequels and spin-offs is that the settings and characters are familiar, giving me the chance to delve deeper into their stories.
My next book, due out in August, is a one off. (For now.) Title and cover reveal coming soon.
The latest series of Digging for Britain was as fascinating and informative as usual, but I think the one item uncovered that generated the most interest for a lot of viewers, including myself, was the dodecahedron. 33 of these objects have been discovered in Britain with a number of others throughout Europe. But no one knows what they were used for. Theories abound with no idea why they were created. Perhaps it was an early version of a Rubik’s cube.
Vindolanda…site of ongoing excavations near Hadrian’s Wall
I’ve always been interested in British Roman history. So, it was a natural choice to explore some elements of it in my debut novel, Starting Over. At the outset, I knew that an archaeological dig was going to feature as part of the story. However, until about three quarters of the way through the first draft, I didn’t know what the great find would be.
Then my mother gave me a book she’d had for many years – a history of the Brigantes tribe. As I live in a part of Yorkshire that was pretty much in the middle of the territory covered by this tribe – stretching from below Manchester up to the much-disputed border with the Picts – I was quite taken with the story of Queen Cartimandua. The Roman historians gave her the title of ‘queen’. She was really the tribal chief. Although much has been written about Boudica’s exploits, Cartimandua barely gets a mention. She disappears from history and her remains have never been found.
Time to step in and rectify this. Over the three books of what became the Starling Hill trilogy, I was able to give Cartimandua her due – recognition as a leader who aimed for peace with the invading Romans, and a fitting tribute.
The Starling Hill Trilogy
As I was writing the second part of the trilogy, Arc Over Time, the discussions about where to reinter the recently discovered bones of Richard III under the car park in Leicester were ongoing. This led me to speculate in the third book, Carved in Stone, about the location of Cartimandua’s final resting place. I ventured briefly into the paranormal as the Queen was able to have her say in where she wanted to be buried, along with a fitting memorial to her reign. In each of the books, Cartimandua gets a chance to give her point of view, as in this extract from the end of Starting Over: The Last Word, A voice from the Past:
…She had lain a long time in the cold ground, unheralded, forgotten, surrounded by a few tokens representing her position and her wealth, ill-gotten gains some would have said, including her poor excuse of a husband. What did they know? She had kept the peace, traded with the invaders. She had taken care of her people. Her tribe lived free.
Why did that bitch, Boudica, and her rabble grab all the attention? Iceni upstarts. Bunch of foul-smelling horse breeders, rampaging about the countryside, killing, looting. No better than the Romani. Numerous books were written about the marauding queen, a statue erected in a place she’d burned to the ground, and what recognition did she, the peacemaker, achieve? The occasional one line in dry historical tomes. A footnote in the history of the greatest tribe in northern Britain.
And now, her final resting place disturbed. She had chosen to retire here. Away from the conflict raging in her formerly peaceful queendom. It had been a tranquil, healing time with her lover, away from the strife, watching the starlings swoop and play in the clear air across the moors…
(from Starting Over by Jen Silver, published by Affinity Rainbow Publications)
Five years ago today my debut novel, Starting Over, was published by Affinity Rainbow Publications.
A lovely bunch of flowers from my mother to celebrate the occasion (and champagne from my wife).
Here’s an excerpt from a blog posted in January 2015:
When the book came out in paperback I gave a copy to a friend, a former English teacher. Weeks passed and she didn’t mention it, and I was afraid to ask. Then just before Christmas my partner and I were enjoying a glass of mulled wine in a local café and my friend’s husband came in. After ordering their drinks he sat down at a table nearby. Looking over, he recognised me, and to my surprise said, “Oh, I’ve read your book. Really enjoyed it. But it was a bit steamy.”
I really didn’t think there were any major ‘steamy’ scenes in it. No shower scenes, anyway. But then my brother, who was reading the book while visiting my mother at Christmas, kept saying things like: “Oh my god, they’re doing it in the kitchen.”
Neither of these men could be considered part of my target audience and had no previous experience of reading lesbian fiction. So even the mildest contact between two women might be considered ‘steamy’ and my brother clearly thought nothing other than cooking could possibly take place in the kitchen.
Another first – seeing my book on the shelf of our local bookshop, The Book Case in Hebden Bridge.
The first reviews from experienced lesfic readers were very much on the positive side, so I was greatly encouraged to continue with this writing adventure.
I’d already completed a sequel and Affinity accepted it, somewhat reluctantly, with the proviso that sequels didn’t often do well. But that didn’t stop me from writing a third book to complete the trilogy. Sales of Arc Over Time and Carved in Stone were pretty dire – so I can only conclude that – a) my publisher was right, and b) readers weren’t as invested in the characters from Starting Over as I was.
I recently reread all three books for the first time since they were published. And, you know what, I really enjoyed them. (What a great bunch of characters!) It also helped me make the decision on which of my books should next get the audio treatment. It will be Starting Over and Nicola Victoria Vincent has agreed to do the narration.
Signing the first paperback copies.
So, if you’re looking for a not too steamy romance with archaeology and a bit of Romano-British history thrown in, why not take a look at Starting Over.
In my last blog post I gave an overview of what I’ve been up to this summer with activities and events. So now I thought I would take a look at what I’ve been reading over the last few months.
The science fiction bug has bitten me this year:
The title of the first book in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series intrigued me: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. And I wasn’t disappointed. The author captures the differing species and personalities aboard a spaceship very well. It made me wonder how well any of us would cope having to interact at close quarters with different-bodied aliens when the small differences in human aspects seem to be a challenge on our own small angry planet.
Although I’ve read the Chronicles of Alsea series on my kindle, I’ve enjoyed rereading the stories in paperback format (very well produced by Heartsome Publishing). Earlier this year I reread The Caphenon (Book1), Outcaste (Book 6), Resilience (Book 7), and Uprising (Book 8). I’ve now gone back to Without a Front: The Producer’s Challenge (Book 2). The first time I read it, I think I missed a lot of the detail. I can take it more slowly now, as I know what happens later on. The challenges faced by the characters populating Fletcher Delancey’s complex Alsean society is worth the revisit. (Next up: Without a Front: The Warrior’s Challenge)
After visiting other worlds, it was time for some down-to-earth romance. However, not being able to decide on a new lesfic book to read, led me to rereading some of my own.
Revisiting them after a gap of almost five years was a pleasant revelation. I really enjoyed them. Starting Over was my debut novel, which spawned two more books to form the Starling Hill trilogy. The archaeological aspect of the stories was something I enjoyed researching and continued to be a real life interest with the five seasons spent as a volunteer excavator at Vindolanda.
Having just released my first audio book, Changing Perspectives, I’ve been pondering which of my other books could be the next one to be produced and I’m thinking Starting Over would do nicely. Any thoughts from readers on that idea are most welcome.
I enjoyed this book – reading about the warrior women who rode into battle, skilled with bows and arrows, and other weapons.
But what really excited me was finding out that archaeologists discovered the remains of Amazons (possibly from Sarmatia, part of the ancient Scythian empire) at a Roman cemetery in Cumbria, near Hadrian’s Wall.
The reason for my excitement is that it validates my entirely hypothetical notion that Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes tribe in northern Britain could have had a female warrior lover. (Ref: The Starling Hill Trilogy)
Sadly, during my time excavating at Vindolanda, near Hadrian’s Wall, the only bones I uncovered were from cows. The Roman legions based there ate a lot of beef!
Rexit and Hexit
I’m trying not to read too much about Brexit although it’s hard to avoid, especially now. But it occurred to me we’ve had two continental splits in the past with different outcomes.
There was Rexit – when the Romans left Britain. The country then descended into 600 years of the ‘Dark Ages’ with tribal warfare breaking out everywhere. Although there is now some archaeological evidence to suggest that it wasn’t all a dark time. Just that we have no written records. And those of us of a romantic bent are happy to believe that King Arthur was a real person and was successful in uniting the tribes.
And then there was Hexit – when Henry VIII gave notice to the Pope that he wasn’t following the church’s rules on divorce anymore. Instead of the country hitting a downward slide…it reasserted itself strongly on the world stage during Queen Elizabeth the First’s reign…particularly with the exploits of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.
I can’t possibly predict how this current ‘exit’ will work out. Maybe sometime in the future historians and archaeologists will be able to fathom what actually happened. At the moment it feels like we could be on the brink of another ‘dark age’.
My latest book, Deuce, doesn’t have anything to do with Amazons, Roman Britain, or Brexit. It’s romantic fiction.
Positive reviews are always a joy, knowing that your written work has connected with a reader. This reviewer has encapsulated what I was trying to achieve with this book…describing it much better than I have managed to do in previous blogs.
“The story is so well told. It has love, unexpected family complications, passion and surprises. I could not put it down. I wanted to know what happened next to these characters. They felt real and I began to care about them. They each had to face the fact that time does not stand still and people change. Sometimes that means accepting differences and sometimes it means putting yourself in their shoes. Jen Silver has a talent for crafting characters and storylines that really resonate. She subtly weaves real events into her work and that makes the reader feel more engaged. ‘Deuce’ may be my favourite of her novels so far.”
jenjsilver 