Lawless and the House of Electricity Blog Tour Guest post from William Sutton.

I am delighted to be involved in the blog tour for the latest instalment in the Campbell Lawless series of crime thrillers set in mid Victorian London, perfect reading for the Madwoman in the Attic. Thanks so much to William for the guest post he has provided here about Victorian advertising and to Lydia Gittins at Titan for sending me a copy of the book.


Lawless & the House of Electricity by William Sutton, third in his series of Lawless mysteries exploring the darker sides of Victorian London, is published by Titan Books, and features a mad woman in the attic, whose symptoms are all too Victorian.

ASTHMA CIGARETTES: ADVERTISEMENTS AND INSPIRING ILLNESSES
Victorian advertisements beguile me. They speak volumes of the age, of its anxieties and its swindlers. Dr Batty’s Asthma Cigarettes For the temporary relief of paroxysms Not recommended for children under 6

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Well, you could, but the real examples are better. (View more on Pinterest.)
With all our vitamins, homeopathics and aromatherapies, you might think this is the age of dodgy medications, but you wouldn’t believe the things Victorians tried. In writing Lawless & the House of Electricity, I returned over and again to advertisements and other picture inspirations for two strands of the book: terrorism and illness.




VICTORIAN DIAGNOSES
A wonderful range of ailments is purportedly cured by Dr Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People: “paralysis, locomotor ataxia, anaemia, weakness, scrofula, sundry ailments”. From this I derived diagnoses, more and less reasonable, for Lady Elodie, the mysterious absentee at Roxbury House.

Arsenical Soap was used to treat “disfigurements: blotches, blemishes, freckles, pimples and pustulance”. The fact that it was poisonous caused problems, and suspicious deaths accelerated through the mid-century. The Arsenic Act of 1851 did not stop the panic over poisonings, as seen in ITV’s drama Dark Angel.

I recommend you read further in Kathryn Harkup’s A is for Arsenic, which gives encyclopaedic detail on the myriad ways you may poison your loved ones (or your characters).



DIABOLICAL DIAGNOSES I got so inspired by all this, I wrote a ditty about it for the Writing Edward King project (hear it on Soundcloud), characterising the wild range of diseases that sent people to those daunting and magnificent asylums that sprung up around the country after the Asylums Act.

I’ll admit that scrofula and pustulance aren’t too common today (at least in Europe, though Dickensian concerns are often still operative in the wider world). But researching hysteria in Asti Hustvedt’s excellent Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris made me think twice before mocking Victorian medicine.
We may laugh at “strolling congestion, drawing room anguish, dissipation of nerves and imaginary female trouble” (genuine contributory factors cited upon commitment to a Victorian asylum). But if we mock Victorian diagnoses, what will today’s diagnoses look like in future?

Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test explodes the alarmingly arbitrary origins of today’s diagnostic criteria (psychologists using DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Perhaps we should think how today’s diagnoses will be laughed at in the future.
I resisted classifying Lady’s Elodie’s disease by modern criteria (depression, epileptic absences, fugues). It has more in common with the encephalitis lethargica of Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings and the catalepsy-lethargy-somnambulism of Charcot’s hysterics in the Saltpêtrière Hospital of Paris.
The pictures remind us that the past was once the present: laugh if you dare, but you will be laughed at in turn one day.


TOP VICTORIAN PIC SOURCES
Follow these stars of Twitter and the blogosphere and the world of Victorian pics will open up: 1. My pictorial inspirations on Pinterest 2. British Library’s Open Source archive 3. Whores of Yore (Kate Lister @WhoresofYore). See especially her Word of the Day and Historical Hotties 4. Victorian London (Lee Jackson @VictorianLondon) 5. Wayward Women (Lucy Williams @19thC_Offender

Electric Blog Tour Day 1 (Tags: writing, Vic Pics, diagnoses, ads, inspiration, asylum, madness) 

The Books that Made Me M.L. Rio

Today I welcome M. L. Rio to the blog to tell us all about some of her favourite books in this week's edition of The Books That Made Me.

The first book I have distinct memories of is The Hobbit. My mother read it out loud to me and my brother when we were too young to read it ourselves. It was what we did after dinner instead of having dessert, and we looked forward to it the same way other kids probably looked forward to ice cream or Oreos. I still have a soft spot for Tolkien, because he was the first author who really captured my imagination and invited me into a new world. Middle Earth, with all its mythology and all its tangible detail, was where I lived and got lost in the long afternoons of elementary and middle school. Sometimes I still go back to visit.
Around the same time I embarked on The Lord of the Rings on my own, I discovered Shakespeare in my parents’ library. The first play I read was The Comedy of Errors, and though it’s not the best play, I immediately wanted more. I tore through the Complete Works, and by the time I turned thirteen I had read every play and every poem, most more than once. A year later I appeared in my first Shakespeare play—I was Feste in Twelfth Night—which only fueled the fire of Bardolatry. I was captivated by the language. It’s so rich and complex that ten years later I still discover new things hidden between the lines every day. You might say Shakespeare is my muse. His works have not only been the focus of my graduate degree but the inspiration for my first novel, If We Were Villains (which takes its title from my favorite play, King Lear). Miraculously, I’m not any less in love with Shakespeare now than I was when I read him for the first time.
Like Shakespeare, John Knowles had a significant impact on my reading and writing habits. I first read A Separate Peace in a sixth grade English class (I was eleven), and then proceeded to re-read it almost every year that came after. It was my first campus novel, my first war novel (in a way), and the first novel that really upset me. Up until then, I hadn’t realized that fiction could be so unfair. I had grown accustomed to happy endings and moral absolutes and Knowles ripped the rug out from under me. It is a brutally beautiful book, and it will always have a place on my shelf, wherever in the world I may be.

M.L. Rio is the author of the phenomenal thriller that everyone is talking about this summer If We Were Villains, it's been compared to Donna Tartt's The Secret History and has won widespread critical and popular acclaim. Available now from Titan Books (UK).

The Killing Bay By Chris Ould Blog Tour

Chris Ould's latest novel continues his Faroes Series which began with The Blood Strand. I'm new to this series so diving straight in to book two I was aware that there was a continuing narrative from book one but it wasn't too difficult to catch up. The book has two main protaganists local detective Hjalti Hentze and English policeman Jan Reyna. Jan is visiting the islands for his father's funeral and to try to learn more about his mother who died when he was a child and to try to reconnect with his birthplace. Jan and Hjalti have already been through an ordeal in the first book and now Jan is spending his time walking the hills and learning more about the islands and his family. Hjalti meanwhile is dealing with a murder. In the wake of a protest against the traditional Faroese whale hunt or grind, a female photographer working with the protest group is found dead, while the initial  signs seem to indicate a sexually motivated attack, Hjalti is not so sure and as he digs deeper it seems perhaps the killer may be dangerously close to home. I found Chris Ould's characters incredibly likeable and interesting and this book is a genuine page turner set in a stunning part of the world. There is a clash of cultures between the whale hunters and the protesters and within many of the characters Jan and Erla particularly. If you enjoy Anne Cleeves Shetland series or the Scandi Noir of Anne Holt then add Chris Ould and the Faroes series to your must read list.

The Killing Bay is out now from Titan Books. Thanks to Philippa at Titan for a review copy of the book.

I asked Chris to tell me about his typical writing day. Here's what he said.

How I Write - Chris Ould

Asking a writer how they write is like asking a juggler how they keep six oranges in the air at the same time. The juggler could probably break it down into the size, texture and aerodynamic properties of the oranges, but I'm still not sure he'd really be able to describe how he does it.

That said, I think the biggest challenge in writing is to just show up, by which I mean to sit down at the desk ready to work. Generally I'm in the office – read shed – at just after 7:30 when my son goes off to catch the school bus. I'm always more productive during school term time because I can't sleep late. That's something I don't like to do these days, anyway.

My shed/office was a toilet and shower block for a caravan site on the fields next to our house in the 1960s. The name "Steve" is neatly carved into the plaster near my right elbow and I rather like the notion that I'm carrying on Steve's labours in the same place. I refurbished the shed myself when we first moved here so it's custom built for diversion. I like having stuff to look at and fiddle with if I get stuck on a line, so the desk is littered with knick-knacks, toys, puzzles, marbles... basically anything that I find interesting. I share the shed with a few mice who find their way in under the floor or behind the cladding on the walls. By and large we get on all right, although I do have to use a stick to bang on the walls when they're really noisy. The cat kills a few of them when he can be bothered. Most of the time he keeps me company by sleeping.

My rule is to write at least a thousand words a day, every day. If I get to a thousand by mid morning I sometimes give myself the rest of the day off, but usually if it's going that well I just want to keep writing until I run out of steam. On a very good day I'll more than double the word target and then I'm rewarded with gin. I worked for a long time as a TV scriptwriter and doing that was a good way of learning to be disciplined and professional. With a shooting schedule to keep to there's no time to have writer's block or wait for the muse to strike. If you can't deliver a good script and on time you don't get another commission, it's as simple as that.

The only time I relax the thousand-words-a-day rule is when I'm working on the plot of a book, which is probably harder work than the actual writing. Because I write crime novels, which are basically exercises in deception, the plot is essential. Getting motives and means all figured out before I start writing is absolutely key. It also helps to know where you want to end up, so often I'll have a good idea of the ending before I even know exactly who, what and why.

Plotting can take a couple of months to get right. A simple idea like, "he could be killed with a flick knife and it's revealed by the post mortem" can mean days of research, either online, talking to an expert, or going to look at something myself. The browsing history on my Mac would be distinctly suspicious if I was ever a suspect for murder, but really the best way to get information (and great story details) is to talk to coppers, doctors and lawyers. I'm very lucky in knowing great people in those fields and by now they're pretty used to weird questions, followed by days of silence while I try and work their advice into the plot, and then a load more supplementary questions. I do like to get things right if I possibly can.

The plotting stage is also where characters start to take shape. What a character does in the story should be governed by what type of person they are. So if I know I need someone to steal a child from a nursery, say, I work out what sort of person would do that and why, and then I write them accordingly from the start. It might sound obvious to do it that way round, but I think one of the most common mistakes writers make is to have a character do something that is out of character for the person they've created, just because that's what the plot calls for. I suspect that the main reason that happens is poor planning, whether it's in a crime novel or not. I don't believe a good novel is ever really written as a product of pure stream of consciousness without the author knowing where it's going.

By the end of the research/plotting period I usually have a 20-30 page document – a storyline – which is a road map of the entire book. It's usually full of shorthand notes to myself and reminders of logic and character, and that's what I follow to the end. Occasionally, once I get some way into a book, I realise something's not working or is pulling the plot off course. If so I stop writing and reassess and then change the plot, or go back and find out where I took a wrong turn and delete stuff.

The worst advice I've ever come across about writing was to "just carry on to the end, even if you think you've got a problem." That's utter rubbish, to put it politely. If you've got a problem it's not going to go away by ignoring it: things will only get worse. You have to diagnose what's causing the problem and put it right, otherwise you'll just end up with a badly flawed story which will have to be substantially rewritten to make it decent. That's just a waste of time and energy. The best advice I ever heard was "be prepared to kill your babies". In other words, no matter how well written something is, no matter how much you love it, if it doesn't help the story, press delete.

I usually write well until lunch time, but afterwards getting back into it can be hard so I tend to potter around and do admin and other things for a while. Anything physical or that uses a different part of the brain is good. I keep a few sheep so they have to be checked and looked after, and I can usually find wood to cut or something else to do outside for an hour or so, and then by mid afternoon I'm ready to go again. If I'm really on a roll I'll sometimes work after dinner as well, but generally I've had enough by then so I'll watch something on TV, although it often ends up being a documentary that might have interesting (ie useful) information in it for a book idea.

I'm not sure that writers ever really switch off. If the work's going well you're thinking about the next page, and if it's not you're thinking about the section you wrote and how to fix it. I don't remember my dreams, so I don't know if I dream about writing, but I often wake up thinking about it in the morning.

 Thanks so much Chris. Some great writing tips there.

The first novel in Chris Ould's Faroes trilogy, The Blood Strand, was published last year by Titan Books. The second book in the series, The Killing Bay, is published on 21 February 2017.

The Moonstone's Curse by Sam Siciliano

The Moonstone's Curse is the latest title in Titan Books Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series. I am always happy to read anything set in the Sherlock universe and this book was a fine addition to that world neatly blending plot and characters from Wilkie Collins The Moonstone with Sherlock's London society. Well to do aristocrat Charles Bromley seeks the help of Holmes and his cousin Dr Henry Vernier because he believes his wife is in imminent danger. His wife Alice has inherited the priceless diamond known as the Moonstone from her father Neville who inherited it from his mother Rachel Verinder the original recipient of the diamond in Wilkie Collins novel of 1868. Bromley goes on to explain the diamond's bloody history and the belief that Alice's ancestor had stolen the diamond during the siege of Srirangaptana and murdered the man tasked with guarding it. Alice is convinced that because of this bloody history the Moonstone is cursed. She believes that it killed her parents and she wants to get rid of it. However Alice is prevented from selling the diamond by a clause in her inheritance which means the diamond must pass intact to her surviving kin. Alice has recently begun to see faces at the window and is convinced that someone has come from India to take the diamond back. Sherlock Holmes is of course intrigued and the game is indeed afoot. Following on the trail of a murdered jeweller Holmes and Vernier are soon entangled in the mystery of The Moonstone and under its sinister spell. Tying Sherlock Holmes to what most would consider the first detective or mystery novel is a smart move on the part of the author and one that Siciliano has pulled off before; his previous Sherlock Holmes novels include The White Worm inspired by one of Bram Stoker's less successful outings. The Moonstone's Curse is however a twisty mystery full of intriguing characters especially Vernier and his wife Michelle Doudet-Vernier  also a doctor. The contrast between the frightened and laudanum addicted Alice and the redoubtable Michelle offers a marked commentary on Victorian feminity.
I really enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading more of the adventures of Holmes and the Verniers.

The Moonstone's Curse is published today 14th February and is available in paperback and ebook from Titan Books. Thanks so much to Phillipa Ward for sending me a copy.

The Counterfeit Detective by Stuart Douglas

The Counterfeit Detective is the latest installment in Titan Books The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and it is Stuart Douglas's second contribution to the series.
The book begins with an anonymous letter which informs Holmes and Watson of another Sherlock Holmes at work in New York, and so the intrepid pair set out to investigate this false Holmes. The year is 1899 and their adventures begins almost immediately as they investigate the murder of a sailor on the ship as they travel across the Atlantic.
Arriving in New York with a letter of introduction from Inspector Gregson they meet a Yorkshireman; Simeon Bullock now an Inspector with the New York City Police and they begin to investigate the counterfeit Sherlock. However almost as soon as they begin the body count of former clients starts to mount.
This is an intriguing mystery full of twists and turns and Douglas does a great job at capturing the essence of everyone's favourite detective duo. The mystery here is sufficiently convoluted as to satisfy even die-hard fans and the introduction of Inspector Bullock; world weary and yet insightful is a welcome addition.
I think this novel is accessible to readers new to the series and to more seasoned readers and it makes a welcome addition to the cannon and to Titan's impressive output of Sherlockiana. With Season 4 of Sherlock due to broadcast on New Year's Day, another outing for the film franchise with Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law in the works and Elementary with Johhny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu continuing it's popularity Sherlock fever isn't going anywhere.
Thanks very much to Alice Morgan at Titan Books for a review copy of this book. 

Associates of Sherlock Holmes edited by George Mann

This collection edited by George Mann is the third he has produced for Titan Books and features a number of writers well known for their Sherlockiana such as Lyndsay Faye and James Lovegrove as well as those such as Simon Bucher-Jones who is presenting his first Sherlock Holmes story here. Unlike many other stories set in the universe of Arthur Conan Doyle which present the cases from Watson's viewpoint as Doyle did, here we see Holmes and Watson through the eyes of others; including Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler and many more. It allows many of the associates, clients and villains to tell their own stories for the first time. The collection opens with a new story from fan favourite Lyndsay Faye as she allows Police Inspector Stanley Hopkins who appeared in Doyle's "The Adventure of Black Peter" to tell us a brand new tale of body parts dredged from the Thames in "River of Silence" There are some brilliant supernatural touches too courtesy of Jeffrey Thomas and Tim Pratt.
Titan are undoubtedly the best and most enthusiastic publisher of Sherlockiana and this collection is a fantastic idea although some stories are less successful than others. This collection is also a wonderful showcase of the work of some great new (to me) authors of crime, science fiction and fantasy. I will certainly be exploring more of the work of some of the authors I have encountered here. Fans of Sherlock Holmes won't be disappointed and in fact I went back to the original stories with new insight.
Perfect for fans and new readers alike.
Thanks to Philippa Ward from Titan Books for a review copy of this book.
Associates of Sherlock Holmes is published later this week. 

River Road by Carol Goodman

Carol Goodman is one of my favourite authors. She is a literary chameleon capable of writing gothic chillers, YA fantasy, romance and gripping crime. This book will not disappoint avid fans but will also appeal to those who have never read her before. River Road is a psychological crime thriller about a small town college professor Nan Lewis who is driving home in a snowstorm when she feels something hit her car. She convinces herself that it was just a deer but then she finds out that a brilliant student of hers, Leia Dawson has been knocked down and killed in a hit and run accident and she was found on River Road, just where Nan hit a deer or did she?
Goodman slowly reveals the secrets of Nan, Leia and the various other people in the cast of fascinating characters in this twisty, page turning novel. We learn that Nan's daughter was killed in a hit and run seven years before and since then Nan's marriage has disintegrated and her career has stalled. She's a creative writing professor who is unable to write. Her grief has left her psychologically paralysed and consumed by guilt. An intriguing mystery and several well developed characters will keep readers turning the pages in Goodman's first book with British publisher Titan. Ideal for fans of Liz Nugent or Elly Griffiths.
Thanks to Titan Books for a review copy.

Lawless and The Flowers of Sin Blog Tour

I am delighted to be hosting today's spot on William Sutton's Seven Sins blog tour. Lawless and the Flowers of Sin is the second book in the compelling Campbell Lawless Victorian Mystery series

From the press release

It is 1863, and as a reluctant Inspector of Vice, Campbell Lawless undertakes a reckoning of London’s houses of ill repute, a shadowy netherworld of frayed glamour and double standards; mesmerising and
unspeakable by turns. From the erotic booksellers of Holywell Street to the alleys of Haymarket, he discovers backstreet cast-offs and casualties of the society bordellos, and becomes fascinated by a
musician who has established a foundation for fallen women. But his inquiries draw the attention of powerful men, who can be merciless in defending their reputations. Lawless must unlock the heart of a clandestine network, before he too is silenced...
William Sutton comes from Dunblane, Scotland. He has written for The Times and the Fortean
Times, acted in the longest play in the world, and played cricket for Brazil. He writes for international magazines about language, music and futurology. His plays have been produced on radio and in
London fringe theatres. He has performed at events from the Edinburgh Festival to High Down Prison, often wielding a ukulele.

Today's sin that William has blogged about is Wrath; here's what he had to say.

Wrath Seven Sinful Blogs Hello, hello, I’m William Sutton, author of Lawless and the Flowers of Sin, due out in July with Titan Books. To celebrate, I’m delivering a series of Sinful Blogs.

Righteous Wrath: Dickensian London is still with us

Anger may be a sin. But aren’t there times it is right to be angry?
In my first book, Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square, I wrote about the poverty in London’s East End. “Rookeries”, the tiny streets piled with indigent workers, struggling in the cut-throat capital. Wealth rides roughshod over poverty. Ten thousand are made homeless to build the first underground train, in the name of progress, not profit (though they are not rehoused). The media whip up frenzies about crime, immigration, eco-disaster. To speak against the status quo is to be branded a danger to the nation.
1859. How unimaginably different from today...
Researching my second book, about a different kind of underworld, I expected to find that the Victorians were much worse than we are today. In terms of equality, in terms of prostitution, in terms of exploitation.
But strange things have happened while I’ve been writing it. As I was writing about press intrusion and manipulation of the news, up came the Leveson Enquiry, which shows that today’s papers are just as guilty of whipping up purposeful frenzy, careless of the individuals caught up in it.
As I was writing about police collusion with politicians and celebrities to cover up shameful proclivities, sinful habits, lies, coercions and abuses, out came the tales of Jimmy Savile. The Catholic Church. Babies buried at convents. Youths bought, sold and discarded.
A Tory whip, Tim Fortescue, boasted in the 1990s that, during Edward Heath’s time as PM, he could cover up “scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal which a member might be mixed up in. And if we could we did. ... If we could get a chap out of trouble, he’ll do as we ask forever more.” Fortescue, now dead, says this with no compunction. To him it is quite clear: the people do not need to know what goes on behind closed doors, whatever it may be, whoever may have been hurt.
That kind of attitude, we like to believe, is in the past. But the more that has come out about other predators in Operation Yew Tree, the more that seems doubtful.
Even in the Stanford rape case, we heard the accused’s father plea that, in a life of twenty years, it was just twenty minutes of wrongdoing. As if to say, the victim’s suffering is nothing; what matters is that important people don’t have their lives sullied by the odd error of judgement.
This is exactly the sort of thinking I found throughout the Victorian era, for example, in the mysterious Walter’s memoir, erotic epic My Secret Life. Walter forces himself on maids, cooks, cousins, prostitutes crossing the street, courtesans in fine lodgings, ladies in foreign hotels. His attitude is clear, that if they give in in the end, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t claim that he is without fault. He just doesn’t care. And in Victorian times, once a woman is “ruined”, as we know, it’s a hard road back to decency. Though both
Walter and the social journalist Henry Mayhew write of women who pass through the netherworld of prostitution and emerge back to decency, running cafes, or as wives to lords and dukes.
The mysteries behind our doors fascinate us, as they did Wilkie Collins. The picturesque poverty of bygone days fills our TVs with period drama: Ripper Street, Jekyll & Hyde, An Inspector Calls. We pat ourselves on the back, lamenting past inequality, but confident we have risen beyond it.
We haven’t. “Give us back our country,” say some politicians. No need: Dickensian London is still with us.
Speaking of wrath, in such an unequal world, perhaps it isn’t surprising that disaffected youths turn to extremism, in their search for something to care about.

Thanks a million to William and to Titan Books. follow the rest of the blog tour this week, details below.

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

US Cover                           UK Cover

This was one of my most anticipated sequels of 2016 and it did not disappoint. In fact I thought it was actually better than the first book. This book sees Lila really come into her own travelling with a pirate band throughout the kingdom she has the opportunity to prove herself and make new friends and it becomes increasingly obvious that despite her "outlaw" status she has a great deal more freedom than Kell. Meanwhile Kell along with the rest of Red London is preparing for the Element Games a sort of Olympic games for magic. However despite his defeat of the Dane twins and Holland's apparent death it seems that Black London is not finished with Kell yet. The storytelling is whip-crack smart as expected from Victoria Schwab and in this instalment we get even more world building and new and interesting characters are introduced. I would urge you to read the first book in this series A Darker Shade of Magic as A Gathering of Shadows follows on where that book left off.

UK Cover

A Darker Shade of Magic introduces Kell, one of the last of those who can travel between the different versions of London that overlap each other and that can only be accessed by a traveler using blood magic. Kell is a native of Red London where magic is used everyday, he frequently travels to the much duller Grey London where George III is the reigning monarch and magic has been forgotten and the much more dangerous White London ruled by the vicious Dane Twins, White London also has a traveler; Holland but can they trust each other?

While Victoria Schwab is a successful author of Young Adult novels she makes the leap to Fantasy for adults easily and these books have a great deal of appeal for teens also. I highly recommend this series if you are a fan of Deborah Harkness, Laini Taylor, Genevieve Cogman or the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. 

Thanks so much to Titan Books for sending me review copies of these two titles. Both books are available in paperback and the final book in the series will be published in February 2017.