Tag: green dragon yard

Writing An Alternative Leeds

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, Cathy Marsden, leeds, richard nottingham, tom harper8 Comments

World building is a phrase you’ll often hear in regard to writing. Every author does it, no matter the genre. It’s not simply in fantasy or science fiction, but in all novels, even those set in today’s world. The characters, their relationships, families, where they live. Step by step, the words on the page flesh them out.

I certainly do it. But I’m attempting to also create an alternative history of Leeds.

What is that? It’s something built on the slenderest of reality. Let me explain…

My first series, set in the 1730s, featured a man named Richard Nottingham, the Constable of Leeds. That role would be more honorary than anything, taking part in pageantry while the night watch did the real policing. Richard was a real person, and the town’s constable then; there’s a reference to him parading up Briggate with the great and the good of Leeds. I made him into a proto copper, investigating crimes, living on Marsh Lane crossing Timble Beck each day to the gaol at the top of Kirkgate(the real Richard lived in Kirkgate, then Briggate.

He’s a man with a wife and family and a love-hate relationship with a criminal named Amos Worthy, whose house stood where Swinegate bends. Set in the 1820s, the Simon Westow novels feature a thief-taker, again in the era before a police force. He lives in a house on Swinegate, at the bend of the road, and his twin boys are called Richard and Amos, names he discovered on gravestones outside the Parish Church just before the babies were due to be baptised.

Next January you’ll be meeting Virginia Cooper and her husband Rob; he’s an Inspector of detectives with Leeds Police in 1862. A tip from a friendly lawyer named Amos Westow leads him to a house for rent at the back of Green Dragon Yard. The owner, Jane Truscott, who inherited it from her companion, Mrs Shields, is moving to live with a friend in the country. If you’ve read the Simon Westow books, you’ll certainly remember Jane, a very deadly young woman, older now. Her friend Sally, who also worked as a thief-taker, had long wanted to live on a farm…the thread stretches further. But it’s far from done. Rob Cooper is mentor to a young constable named Kendall, who shows plenty of promise.

By the time of Tom Harper, in the 1890s, Kendall is a superintendent, in charge of Millgarth police station, a position Harper will assume on his rise to chief constable. Tom and his wife Annabelle have a daughter named Mary, a suffragette who’s also a canny businesswoman, opening a typing agency and school on Albion Place.

Tom is commemorated at Millgarth, his picture framed on the wall. Woman Police Sergeant sees it when she’s there as part of the Special Investigation Branch in 1941

Eventually Mary Harper will become a Leeds city councillor, and as you’ll see in July 2027, she’ll use the services of Cathy after the war, when Cathy, no longer part of the police, runs an enquiry agency.

So far, that’s as far as the thread runs, from the 1730s to the 1940s, a little over 200 years. Leeds as it might have been. Or maybe as it really was and the rest of us are a dream. You decide.

Mentioning Cathy Marsden, you can buy the ebook version of the newst novel, The Faces Of The Dead, for 99p (99c in the US), while No Precious Truth is available for Kindle at the £1.99 or $3.99 in the US (free for Kindle Unlimited).

A Few Minutes In Green Dragon Yard

On By chrisnickson2In leeds, simon westow, storyLeave a comment

Please, come and walk with me for a few minutes in Green Dragon Yard. I want to tell you a little story.

Another month and A Rage Of Souls will be published. It’s the eighth, and the final Simon Westow book.

A couple of people who’ve read it feel it’s the darkest in the series, going further into the shadows than The Scream of Sins. That surprised me; I hadn’t seen it that way. But maybe I’m too close to the book to have any objective view.

Yes, there is darkness, but it’s the creeping shade of death and loss – there’s plenty of that in the book – that forms the overall mood. Once again, it’s an exploration of privilege, wealth, greed and a sense of entitlement that money and position can bring.

The canvas is a little broader. Still resolutely Leeds, but ranging a little father, out to Kirkstall Abbey, Temple Newsam, with a passageway connecting the wings under the courtyard, and out to the lovely old church at Lead, close to the historic, deadly Towton battlefield. But all those places hold the past and dead…

The church at Lead

When I wrote the book I had no intention of the being the last one. I had another in mind for that, featuring Jane (who’s been the linchpin of the books) after the death of Mrs Shields. The old woman has left her the house behind Green Dragon Yard plus a surprising amount of money. But the old woman’s great-nephew feels it ought to belong to him and is determined to have it, whatever that takes.

The Old Green Dragon Inn

The possibility of an epic battle, but the words simply wouldn’t catch fire. And without combustion, there’s no book worth reading. I tried several times but couldn’t make it work in the way I wanted.

Whatever the reason, it was a tale determined not to be told.

Simon, Rosie, Jane, Sally, Richard and Amos, they’ve given us their stories. Not always easy ones for them to tell, but they’ve certainly been a part of my life for several years.

Is the book as dark as people have claimed?

More to the point, is it everything I hoped it would be when I finished it?

The only way to know is to read it.

If you’re on NetGalley, you can find it here – all my publisher asks is an honest review (and they’ve been cracking so far).

Or you can pre-order it here for Kindle. But if you’re in the UK and going for the hardback, you’ll find the best price here, with free shipping.

With times being tough, you can always request that your library gets it in. That way, I get a royalty from the sale, plus a small amount ever time someone borrows one of my books.

I hope you like it, and I hope you think I’ve given all the characters hope for the future. That’s all we can ask, really.

And yes, I’d be very grateful if you bought it.

The Return Of The Thief-Taker

On By chrisnickson2In leeds, simon westow4 Comments

On October 7, Jane is coming back…

The scream sliced through the sky. Loud, clear, a cry of pure terror that crashed into her thoughts. Everyone near Seaton’s old mill turned to look. Carts halted, their drivers searching for the sound. Men and women walking together clutched each other’s arms.
All of them stopped except the couple Jane was following. Heads down, they kept moving steadily along, as if they hadn’t heard a thing.
A second scream, stronger, more awful than the first. Two men ran along the road, carrying a girl on a wooden hurdle. She was a small creature, no more than nine, clothes drenched in blood. Her dress was torn, showing a leg where the flesh hung ragged, ripped through to pale bone. Her fists were clenched, thrashing against the wood to try and stop the pain.
‘Be quiet,’ one of the men ordered in a harsh voice. ‘Surgeon will take care of it.’ They all knew what that meant: the leg would go. People shuddered and stepped back as the girl wailed no, no, no, no, the fear raw in her voice….

Jane realised she’d been digging her nails hard into her palms. Pain arrived so suddenly; it could touch anyone. She knew; seeing the girl had brought back the torment of losing her own little
finger. Hers had been a deliberate act of violence, but in some small way she understood. She was still for a moment, trying to push everything she’d just seen out of her mind. She knew it
would return later. As soon as she closed her eyes that night.

You can pre-order it here (UK) or here (US). It might look like the links don’t work, but if you click on the ‘here,’ they do. And yes, the building on the cover is Temple Newsam.