CAN'T DO MUCH ABOUT THE TITLE BUT ....

.... I THINK YOU'LL LOVE THE NEW COVER!


I have just found this great- and fairly recent- review of Bride of the Spear on Library Thing. I'd like to be able to comment on it but can't find how to do it- help anyone?

This gripping tale, the first novel of a trilogy, is realistic historical fiction, obviously based on sound scholarly research. That is the finest kind. The setting is the north of England 180 years after Arthur. The Angles are invading from the south, and the Picts from the northwest. A prince learns to be a true man and a true king, and a princess learns to survive and to forgive, as well as to be a great healer. It is a convincing personal story set, accurately and believeably, in a fascinating place and time. You can go and visit the places in person; you can visit the time by means of this novel.

Yes, the title is lurid, and the cover art is both lurid and non representative of any scene in the story, but then, those were lurid times. It's tough work building civilization.                                           

jzdro

I'd love to reassure jzdro - who has impeccable taste in literature- that the new edition will not have a lurid cover, but I can't do anything about the title, as this is the one by which the book is known, despite it not being the title the author originally chose. A great deal more about how the story evolved, as well as plenty of extra historical notes will be added to the text of the new version.

BOOK GIVEAWAY & E-BOOK PROMO

BOOK ONE OF KATHLEEN HERBERT'S NORTHERN KINGDOMS IS ABOUT TO BE REPUBLISHED

From this ....

..... and this

To this:

To be entered into the draw to win one of the first copies of the new edition, leave a comment on this cover below. The photograph, by Ian Carroll, is meant to capture the atmosphere of the following passage:

He looked up and saw a figure in a grey gown, gold hair streaming across its shoulders, watching him with wide grey eyes. It was as if sunlight, clear stream and grey stone had shaped themselves into a girl. He had the wild thought that the Goddess herself, the Lady of the hill circles and the holy springs, had risen from the stream to his aid.

Previous reader comments have already affected the design, but it will not be fixed for another week or two, so you have a chance to make your influence felt. This is of course, just my rough idea- proportions of back, front and spine will be decided by the number of pages, and graphic designer Kate will work on exact positioning, style and colour of text.

TRIFOLIUM BOOKS' EBOOK PRICE REDUCTION
I have decided to reduce the price of the following three e-books too on Amazon for a limited period only: you can now buy them for around a pound, or under two dollars. That's cheaper than a cup of coffee! Hurry before I change my mind!

The Boy with Two Heads                   Paths of Exile                             Moon in Leo 

If you go to our website, and buy your copy from the links on each author page, we get a tiny proportion of your payment! The more we get, the more we can pay our authors!

 

THERE IS STILL TIME TO HAVE YOUR SAY ...

And to have a chance of winning one of the first copies!
Designer Kate (also my daughter) is due to come and stay with us for a nice long visit bringing our new granddaughter for her first visit to the North Country Far. She will be doing all the design work on Bride of the Spear cover in exchange for some baby sitting!
Thank you to all who have commented so far: you have shown us that we are on the right track, but criticisms and suggestions have been noted too- especially about readability of the text. Here is the cover- front and back, in its newest incarnation (I can't desist from tinkering) - with cooler colours for the text- suggested by an earlier commentator!

PROGRESS WITH THE COVER

Thanks for the comments so far- here is my very rough mock up of what the front cover might look like:

COVER, COMPETITION AND THE LIEBSTER AWARD

Photographer found- check!

Model found- check!

Waterfall found- check!

Given the traumas I went through searching the Lake District- on line and on foot- for the waterfall which exactly fitted Kathleen's description of the magical meeting place of Taniu and Owain, the choice was eventually easy. 

The relevant passage in the book:

He looked up and saw a figure in a grey gown, gold hair streaming across its shoulders, watching him with wide grey eyes. It was as if sunlight, clear stream and grey stone had shaped themselves into a girl. He had the wild thought that the Goddess herself, the Lady of the hill circles and the holy springs, had risen from the stream to his aid.

The beautiful and very accessible Moss Force at the top of Newlands Hause was admired by Coleridge-

It is so near a perpendicular that it would have appeared to fall--but it is indeed so fearfully savage, & black, & jagged, that it tears the flood to pieces--and one great black Outjutment divides the water, & overbrows & keeps uncovered a long slip of jagged black Rock beneath, which gives a marked character to the whole force. What a sight it is to look down on such a Cataract!

The photo shoot went well- apart from Ian getting wet feet and Kathryn a cold bottom, and eventually the sun came out and the Raven cawed us his blessing.

In fact the sun became so insistent that Ian tried using the old umbrella from the boot of my car to defeat the flare. The struggle to control it and the camera landed him in the beck!

Ian is a perfectionist. He would happily do the whole shoot again, but time is pressing and I am delighted with his final photograph.

Now here's the competition bit:
A copy of Bride of the Spear, hot off the press, to the person who gives me the best feedback on the cover image I intend to use:

Some specific questions: 

• Should we see a little of Kathryn's face, or does the back view leave us more intrigued?
• I know that there is some evidence of plaid/check weaving in sixth- century Britain, and visually, I like the way the dark check works with the light grey flowing cloak which echoes the water, but I worry that it looks too modern. Opinions please?
• Should we tidy the hair? We will certainly lighten it to a reddish gold.
• Does the image convey a sense of mystery?
• Could Owain seeing this imagine that sunlight, clear stream and grey stone had shaped themselves into a girl?

And finally, the Leibster Award! I am extremely honoured by being nominated for this award not once, not twice, but three times- something almost magical there! I have been so swamped with work since that I haven't written a post for well over a month, and so felt I really didn't deserve it. However, now that I've written this one, and now that the cover of Bride of the Spear is well on its way, I am ready to tackle my Liebster post, so thank you Kathryn Warner, Carla Nayland and Beth- my next post will honour you!

DESPERATELY SEEKING THE RIGHT WATERFALL

The waterfall in the picture above is in Caldbeck, and is in fact the cold river from which the village takes its name. Although this is not the waterfall which will eventually appear on the cover of Bride of the Spear, it makes a striking design with the moon pendant.

I made this pendant for Kathleen when she was a highly successful author in the 1980s. A moon necklace, with the three aspects of the moon- waxing, full and waning, (representing the triple aspects of the Mother Goddess- Maiden, Mother, Crone) plays an important role in Queen of the Lightning, and this was my modern interpretation of it.

The Mothers are an important presence in the Northern Kingdoms Trilogy, and I feel the design is timeless and iconic. Kathleen thought so too, and can be seen wearing it in some of her author photographs.

So .... one element of the cover design is settled. Meanwhile, the search for the waterfall continues. Designer Kate is on board as is photographer Ian Carroll

MOON IN LEO ARRIVES!

Just over two years since its publication on the 14th February 2011, we brought home two copies of Moon in Leo, which we are reading at Wigton Library's Book Group this month.

I am really looking forward to hearing what other members of the group think of it- there is always plenty of lively debate and disagreement- and I hope they won't hold back!

THE NORTHERN KINGDOMS TRILOGY

Arthur, the last High King of the once civilised Roman province of Britannia, has been dead for fifty years. The last British kings of the North are fighting for survival in a welter of feuding and treachery.

Taniu, neglected and unloved daughter of King Loth of Lothian, is out gathering herbs when she meets a handsome young huntsman, unaware that he is Prince Owain of Cumbria. The two promise to meet in the spring, but when the awaited time comes and the King of Cumbria applies to Loth for the hand of his daughter, Taniu refuses, never connecting huntsman and prince.  Tragedy, bloodshed and separation follow, but there is a satisfyingly upbeat ending.

At last, Kathleen Herbert's Heroic Age books, long out of print, are to be published in their correct order. They have been variously known as The Northumbrian Trilogy and The Cumbrian Trilogy. They have a much wider geographical setting than either suggests, ranging from Lothian and Strathclyde, through Deira and Gwynedd to Mercia so I think they deserve a more inclusive overall title.

LOOKING FOR THE GHOSTS OF CAMELOT

HITHERTO UNDISCOVERED NOVEL BY KATHLEEN HERBERT 

Ghosts of Camelot  is a book which we found, half written, and completely planned, amongst the many notebooks and boxes of papers which we rescued when Kathleen's house was sold. The book is set in Cumbria in the early 14th Century in the reign of Edward II. Trifolium Books' editor, Mike Jensen, is working on reconstructing it, and we hope to publish this exciting new find during the coming year.

 We took advantage of an unusually bright winter's day to take some photos of places which are important in the book. The heroine is Julian le Bret, a retainer of the powerful Clifford family, whose stronghold, Brougham Castle, plays an important role in the story. Just as we are fascinated by the Arthurian legends today, so were people in the 14th Century. Our characters even enact  scenes from the much loved stories, and, living as they did near Eamont Bridge, they had the perfect theatre for their pageant:

This ancient earthwork predates Arthur by at least 2000 years, but it has always been known as King Arthur's Round Table. In the picture below, by kind permission of the landlord of the Crown Hotel, Eamont Bridge- just across the road from his inn, we can see that it was a perfect circular amphitheatre.

After the Arthurian celebrations, Julian finds her way to near-by Mayburgh Henge, another impressive ancient Cumbrian earthwork.

The entrance to Mayburgh Henge.  The distinctive shape of Saddleback can be seen between the ends of the 3 metre high walls which surround the huge arena.

The massive standing stone which remains inside the henge. Originally there were at least four

Looking West- a gap in the wall opposite the entrance reveals Saddleback

Looking East to the Pennines

The keep of Brougham Castle. Julian looks out from the top floor to gaze at the Western Fells 

The sun was setting over the Lake District fells as we left, full of excitement about The Ghosts of Camelot, and feeling we knew a little bit more about Julian, Roger Clifford, and the other characters who lived their lives in this part of the Eden Valley.

LOVE IS NEVER LOST, NEVER WASTED, NEVER DIES

This post is for and about Kathleen- because she is with us, and not with us.

Remembering Kathleen as she was

Kathleen Herbert: 

Teacher, Writer, Friend

A teaching career of close on 40 years

When I mentioned Kathleen Herbert at my last Old Students' Reunion in June 2012, I was amazed and delighted by the warmth that I received on behalf of my friend- that unique and astonishing person Miss Kathleen May Herbert. She had touched so many lives, and changed them for the better, according to the many people who came to me and wanted to talk about how she had had a profound influence on them. She was a charismatic and caring teacher, a warm and witty friend and a subtle and moving writer. All that has gone, but what remains is a gentle, charming but slightly bewildered lady.

Some years before I got to know Kathleen really well, she nursed her mother through terminal cancer. Several years later, she did the same for her father. At this time I had returned to my school in East London to teach English and she was my Head of Department, but her father needed her and so she gave up the job in the school she loved, and went to work in a Catholic High School near her home. She is fondly remembered by pupils and staff from that institution too.

The writer emerges

Meanwhile, in 1982, she published her first novel, The Lady of the Fountain. In 1983, her second novel, Queen of the Lightning  won the Historical Novel Prize awarded annually in memory of Georgette Heyer. Bodley Head also published  the sequel, Ghost in the Sunlight in 1986. At around the same time, The Lady of the Fountain was republished as  Bride of the Spear. All three novels are set in Cumbria, Northumbria and the Borders of Scotland, during the period of upheaval and immigration following the withdrawal of Roman troops in the fifth century. This period is often referred to as The Dark Ages. Kathleen prefers the term Heroic Age.

The three books sold well and were translated into German and French. They were published in paperback by Corgi in 1989.

Following the success of the Cumbrian Trilogy, she concentrated on her scholarly research and produced several volumes on Anglo Saxon history and legend, which are still read and respected by a small but enthusiastic audience. Melvyn Bragg acknowledged one of them, Spellcraft, as a most helpful source in his Afterword to Credo, his historical novel about St Bega, set in Cumbria in the Heroic Age. (Spellcraft is still in print, now called English Heroic Legends, and available on Amazon and from the publisher Anglo Saxon Books, as are Peace-Weavers and Shield-Maidens and Looking for the Lost Gods of England)

She retired in 1984 at age 60 and was in her prime,  while her books were selling well. She devoted herself to studying, lecturing and writing. She learnt Welsh in order to read The Mabinogion and other early British epic tales, and she also studied Hungarian. I have the impression that the main reason she did this was because Hungarian is such a notoriously difficult language, and she relished the challenge!

She spent a great deal of time tramping the hills of her beloved North Country, particularly Cumbria, researching on foot the backgrounds for her novels.

Then in April 1994 she had a massive stroke. Her tenacity, strength and humour enabled her to rebuild her life and carry on for a while, but I didn't fully realise how much damage had been done until some years later.

My friendship with Kathleen has lasted for well over forty years. Like all friendships, it has changed, as I married and had children (to whom she became a much loved and affectionate "Auntie") and she became a well respected author. There were gaps, high points and low points. During the last few years there have been low points indeed, as the stroke started to take its toll, and she became prey to depression and delusion. During those dark years, we met rarely, and she allowed no-one into her house. She was often despairing and felt she was being watched. She bemoaned her own incapability- on good days with a joke, on bad days with tears. 

We had many long phone calls (I moved to Cumbria in 1980 while she stayed in London) and she frequently referred to her "Furness novel" and asked me if I could help her "sort it out". This was a fourth novel, completed in the late eighties or early nineties, which her publisher, Bodley Head, thought was her best, but in the economic climate of the time, they declined to publish it, as it was long, and not set in the South East! She said that a well meaning friend had offered to type it and that he or she had done a disastrous job of it. It sounded as if they had not just typed it badly, but lost some of it as well!

I often reiterated my offer to work on the book for her, and try to reconstruct it if I could, but although we tried to arrange meetings, something always happened to prevent it, and it wasn't until much later that I realized just how poorly she had become. She became more and more despairing and felt she was being watched. I reassured her as best I could, but she was reluctant to meet and I felt powerless. In 2009 she wrote to me, asking me if I could get the book published, and saying that it had got messed up when she was ill. At that point, I suggested she put it all into a box and send it to me, registered post. It took another year to persuade her to meet me and hand it over.

The lost book is found

Finally, in June 2010, gathering all her strength and all her pages, she managed to bundle the manuscript into two large carrier bags- "bags for life" - a lovely irony. And she gathered enough courage and energy to meet me outside Burnt Oak station with the bags. 

I hadn't seen her for several years and I hardly recognised her. A striking and lovely woman in her prime, with pale red-gold hair and a sense of the dramatic, Kathleen loved beautiful and exotic fabrics, rich colours and textures, and was always immaculately groomed.  Now she was thin and unkempt, with slightly grubby fingernails, and a stain or two down her coat. I said hello and touched her on the shoulder and we embraced briefly, but she didn't want me to see her: "I want you all to remember me as I was," she said. 

She had a week or two of great energy and optimism, when she rode on the wave that had buoyed her up to gather her book together but it was a very brief upturn in what proved to be a rapid decline in her health and spirits. She had been neglecting the physical world of eating, drinking and sleeping until she was found wandering, far from home with a dislocated shoulder, and taken to the nearest hospital. Although she is now physically comfortable, a second stroke, and the ravages of self- neglect and age mean that her mental capacity is declining. Her once powerful mind is now dark and clouded. It almost seems that every time I see her, a few more lights have gone out, and yet occasionally someone pulls the curtains open a crack and a beam of brightness strikes the back wall and I see her and hear her as she was. Sadly, these intervals are becoming more and more infrequent.

There seems to have been serious deterioration since that school reunion in June 2012. Immediately after the meeting I was able to tell her of how many people had said she changed their lives and how much she meant to them. That certainly got through and tears ran down her cheeks. I wept too for the loss of beauty, of intelligence, the sadness of humanity- sunt lacrimae rerum.

As a family, we find Kathleen's present state very hard to cope with, but we know that she is more comfortable now than she has been for several years; she is warm, well fed and free from pain. More than this, she is free from the despair and delusion which she suffered from for so many years. When my daughter Kate visited her last Kathleen said she was happy where she is now. After a life of such great creativity, energy and intensity, perhaps we should wish no more for her, than the peace she now has.

Trifolium Books 2011

I formed Trifolium Books UK in January 2011, and published Moon in Leo on 14th February 2011. The sorting of the manuscript and its eventual publication is another story, which you can read elswehere.

Moon in Leo is set in Northern England in Furness, on the southern edge of the Lake District, but encompasses the whole of Britain and Europe. The book has received excellent reviews, and is selling steadily. It is available from Amazon and The Book Depository worldwide, as an e-book from Amazon, and from any good bookshop.

I now have all Kathleen's notes and literary papers and am gradually working through them. I will be publishing some of her essays and lecture notes, to allow a wider public to benefit from her scholarship and wisdom. Her retelling of Guinevere's story is already available as an e-book: The Once and Future Queen.

In 2013, I intend to reissue the early novels as The Northern Kingdoms Trilogy, and Mike and I are hoping to publish an entirely new novel, Ghosts of Camelot, which we found, half written, and completely planned, amongst the many notebooks and boxes of papers which we rescued when Kathleen's house was sold. Although she was delighted at the publication of Moon in Leo, and still has a copy beside her bed,  Kathleen is now beyond understanding what needs to be done to bring this fifth novel to publication. I can do nothing for her now but make sure her work reaches the public as I believe she would have wished. 

CAN WE ASK A FAVOUR?

Julia and I are excited and delighted that so many readers have downloaded the free ebook of The Boy with Two Heads, and I am looking forward to gaining more readers on Sunday, when four e-books will be free to download from midnight to midnight PST (8.00 am on Sunday to 8.00 am on Monday here in the UK)

Can we ask you to do something in return for your free books? Please let us have some feedback. A comment/review on Amazon or Goodreads would be very welcome- and please be honest!

PRICING OF E-BOOKS

Now, while I am offering one of my e-books as a free download, seems an appropriate time for me to add my few penn'orths to this contentious debate. This article and its comments in today's Telegraph got me thinking.

Let me start with my experience as a publisher, so that what I say can be put into context. I run a new and very small- OK micro- family publishing business. Trifolium Books UK has been in business now for just over 18 months.


I started the business initially because I was not prepared to spend hours, days and weeks of my life trying to find an agent and/or publisher for my friend Kathleen Herbert who had been a highly successful, mainstream published, author in the 1980s. Some of the story is here, thanks to Deborah Swift, and my full reasons for setting up the company are here.

I use new technology- Print on Demand- for my books, which has many great advantages- no wasted copies, no remaindered books, excellent quality printing, world-wide distribution, just as many copies as anyone wants- but one disadvantage: each individual copy costs more than your average trade paperback, and a lot more than mass market 3 for the price of 2, books. In all other ways, I am exactly the same as a traditional publisher: I offer editing, design and promotional services to my authors and don't expect any money from them!

Pricing of the books on Amazon and the world wide market is related to the cost of production, so longer books cost more- and actually this seems very fair to me. I price the paperbacks so that Amazon and the big distributors get what they need and demand; so that I can pay the authors a fair royalty; and so that I can have a tiny chance of making a small profit in the very long run. At the moment, I am happy not to lose money- but then, I don't count my time, nor does any other member of my family team, so it's a bit of an artificial picture. I have no problems with local bookshops- I can supply them on a sale or return basis so that they can sell them at a slightly lower price than Amazon etc.

Now comes the contentious bit- pricing the Kindle versions. Apart from our time, there are up-front costs of the print version- upload, proof copies, revision fees, ISBNs, physical copies for author, designer, British Library etc and enough copies to cover promotion, reviews and local suppliers. When I've done all that, the digital conversion and upload for Kindle (again, apart from time) is free, so I can sell the e copy cheaper. In the case of Moon in Leo, Kathleen and I feel very strongly that we want the book to be read, as it has such a powerful message for us all today.

This is an opportunity for me to offer these books at a lower price- especially as some of them are rather long. For example Moon in Leo has to retail at £11.99 on Amazon, or I would be paying to publish it, so I can offer the digital version at an affordable price, sell more copies and pay the authors a straight 50% of the takings, which will probably go higher if and when I sell more.

I know that I am lucky enough to have a pension that means I don't have to earn money from the business I am passionate about- at least in the short term. So- I am a traditional publisher in some ways- though not a mainstream one, and like the big publishers, I act as a gatekeeper.

The price of this very short ebook is related to its length

Is that the main difference between traditional publishers and self-publishers? Is it this gatekeeping (or lack of it) that worries everyone about self publishing? Well let me tell you- I have read some truly awful books- badly written, badly edited, or seemingly not edited at all, full of plot holes, cliches, dull and unbelievable characters, too many trite adjectives and inappropriate similes- and many were self published; but a shocking number were main stream published. I would buy the argument that we need these big publishing companies if they didn't publish vapid and trivial rubbish like books about non existent meerkats and ghost written biographies of teenage nonentities who are the darlings of readers of Hello Magazine. Most TV, many many films, and much recorded music is utter rubbish- but we are grown ups aren't we? Can't we be our own gatekeepers? We can switch off the telly or the radio, and walk out of the cinema. Why, in the case of books, do we need Nanny Publisher to tell us what we can and can't read? OK so we will have to kiss a lot of frogs before we find our book princes without her to guide us, but with books, I think most of us experienced readers need do no more than peck it on the cheek before we commit. There's no need to go for an all out snog with a bad book!

I think though, that the main point is  that the self publishers who sell cheap are damaging sales of mainstream ebooks. I have a feeling that the big publishers are over pricing their ebooks in an ostrich like move to try and make us buy only paper books. It's often possible on Amazon, to buy the real book cheaper. Whatever the true explanation for this it is counter-intuitive  to buy a virtual book which is dearer than a real one.

I buy ebooks for lots of reasons- one is that I don't risk much money to try a new author, and like many of the commentators in the Telegraph I have read authors I might not have come across because of this. Another reason is that, for good reads that I enjoy at the time, but probably won't read again, I am not cluttering up already bulging bookshelves. However, if I read a Kindle book I think is A Keeper- I go straight out and buy a real version- preferably from my local indie bookshop! I did this for Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance and happily payed full price for both versions- but this is a five star  + + + book!

So- how do we small indie publishers know how to price our ebooks? We neither want to under-value the work of our authors, nor put off potential readers. When Julia and I discussed the digital price of The Boy with Two Heads we decided to price it at less than the price of the adult historical fiction so that young people could afford to buy it with their pocket money. In this discussion between author and publisher, who was being favoured? Author, publisher or reader? Or are we all part of the same community? Take a look at my books on Amazon, and tell me what you think.

A NEW PIECE BY KATHLEEN HERBERT

This is a little morsel- but a tasty one. A single, richly complex, chocolate; a perfectly formed truffle dish; a minute crystal glass of a rare ice-wine-

We are privileged to be the custodians of all Kathleen's literary papers, and are gradually trawling through to see what there is of general interest. This retelling of Guinevere's story is a little gem. Written at the end of the last century, you could say it embodies Kathleen's ideas about feminism, and the almost completely male perspectives handed down to us in legend and history.

 The Once and Future Queen is just a foretaste of riches yet to come.

Ironic cover image

The background image for the cover is based on this lovely pre-Raphaelite painting by John Collier: Queen Guinevere's maying.  Of course, what you will find inside is an altogether tougher Guinevere than this traditional image would suggest.

A PATH TO AUSTRALIA

I woke up this morning to another great book review, this time for Paths of Exile: it's on Smashwords here, but I print an extract below:

The author very cleverly paints a crisp, clear glimpse of an opaque period of Britain’s history. This is where historical fiction - the active, conjecturing mind of an author who is familiar with all the available facts of a certain period - does what no amount of history lessons can ever achieve: it brings an era to life.

This tale of loyalty, treachery, murder, revenge, escape and pursuit, in 7th century post-Roman, pre-Norman Britain (sometimes known as the early ‘Dark Ages’) also has just a smidgen of romance thrown in for good measure. The story is woven around some authentic historical characters (filled out to full living colour), including the main protagonist, along with some vivid entities from the author’s fertile imagination. With great attention to detail (the author is certainly au fait with this period); this is a beautifully crafted story.

T D McKinnon

I feel very proud to be associated with authors of such quality, and although our small family business cannot publish more than a handful of titles a year, these two recent reviews have convinced me that I am right to stick with historical novels of the very highest quality.

T D McKinnon is an Australian writer: his website is here Cheers TD- how about taking a look at other Trifolium Books titles? The Boy with Two Heads will be available on Kindle very soon, and for those of you who live a little nearer to Trifolium Books' heartland, Julia Newsome will be signing copies in Wigton, Penrith and Carlisle on 20th and 21st June- when the Olympic torch comes through those towns. Details of times and venues later.

NOTHING MUCH CHANGES; A NEW REVIEW OF MOON IN LEO

"... the intrigue within today's politics, the suspicion and distrust between indigenous and immigrant communities ..."
 
Recently I have been thinking more about sending out review copies of The Boy with Two Heads, and wrestling with the Kindle edition to think about the other books. However, I occasionally check them out on Amazon, and was delighted to find a new review of Moon in Leo. I print it here in its entirety as it's the first to highlight the book's relevance to today's audience, and it uncannily echoes some of Kathleen's thoughts in her letters to me.

I don't really read historical novels, but "Moon in Leo" came to my attention for two reasons. First, my wife was reading it and I was attracted by the cover and secondly it is set, albeit three hundred and fifty years ago, in the county where I live. Aldingham shown on the cover map is somewhere I used regularly to visit.
Right! So what did I make of the book? Well, it is well researched redolent of the period. One word "guffawing" (page243) jarred a little, I thought it a more modern word, but discovered it had been around for about hundred years at the time this book is set, so one-nil to Kathleen Herbert!
Here, I have no intention of providing a précis of the plot, but make a suggestion! Forget, as you read, when it is set, instead reflect on the intrigue within today's politics, the suspicion and distrust between indigenous and immigrant communities and as you read, you will come to the conclusion that not much changes – we just call things by different names.
This book had a number of problems with me; I've put it that way around deliberately. First, for my taste it is too long at 400 pages, and the font is quite small, I'm getting old and my attention span is not what it once was. Secondly, there are (again for me) too many characters. However, the publisher provides a handy list of characters at the front, to which I repeatedly had to refer. It would though, have been better if this list had been alphabetical.
The holidays are coming up, so go off to Spain, but take with you a small slice of Cumberland in the shape of this novel. It is excellent value, beautifully written and will provide you with an entertaining and educational insight of times gone by. Click on the "Buy" button and be hugely entertained.

This is what Kathleen wrote to me:

I have looked over my novel about Furness during the Popish Plot- which is firmly based on truth… during these last weeks, the story has suddenly become incredibly topical- … for the background  we have:

• a King called Charles, with a complicated marital and family life
• a society of the rich and famous who produce a new scandal with every edition of the newspapers
•   a government that is not only stale but starting to smell     
• an established religion that has run out of steam, and numbers of cults that are boiling with enthusiasm- some for good, some for evil, both inside and outside Christianity     
• and a large number of “alternative” Englands that are barely suspected to exist by “official” England     
• It’s 1678, but change the clothes and it could be today.

And later:

I wrote a novel about the different folk who have come to our islands (for good, bad, fear, food, etc) and how they are still coming. I put the story into the past, so no folk could be insulted or unhappy or frightened.

HEADS AND TALES: JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER

We are so near publication that I wanted to share my excitement about the new book and its very striking cover. When I put our three covers together, I am very pleased that they all look so different- reflecting the very different nature of their stories and writers- but am struck by the similarities too. Each cover has a tale to tell, and every element on each of them has resonances above and beyond its visual impact. More of this later.