A Tale of Two Sisters - Guest Post Merryn Allingham

There are some blog guests I am always very happy to welcome back to Wendy's Writing Now and Merryn Allingham is one of them. She is here today to answer questions about her new release, A Tale of Two Sisters which is published by Canelo.

Can you tell my readers a little more about A Tale of Two Sisters?

It’s 1907 and Lydia Verinder has been in Constantinople for well over a year, working as a governess at Topkapi Palace. When Lydia’s letters home come to an abrupt halt, Alice Verinder is ready to blame her headstrong sister for thoughtlessness - Lydia has always been indulged and Alice’s feelings for her sister are decidedly mixed. She loves Lydia and admires her courage and passion, but feels resentful that since her sister was bundled out of England to escape punishment for a suffragette ‘crime’, she is the one left caring for their parents.

But Lydia’s continued silence is desperately worrying. Why should an English governess working in a securely guarded palace disappear without a word? Fearful of what might have happened, Alice sets out for Turkey alone, lying to her family about her destination. When she reaches Topkapi, she is overwhelmed by it magnificence and by the secrets she suspects the palace is hiding.

Slowly she uncovers the fate of her sister, helped by a young Englishman she meets on the journey. At first, their relationship is prickly, but love grows as together they face the dangers her search provokes. Step by step, Alice penetrates the silence that reigns within the palace but is drawn into a perilous game of power and violence.

What’s the hardest part of writing a novel set in a different century?

I enjoy research which is probably why I’ve gravitated towards historical fiction. Most of my novels are set between the mid-Victorian era and World War Two, and the amount of source material available - letters, diaries, speeches, endless scholarly tomes and novels and films of the period - makes the task relatively easy as well as enjoyable. The internet, too, can be invaluable for checking those tiny details you didn’t know you didn’t know. Where it gets harder is when you’re writing of another country’s past - particularly when you don’t read the language - and you’re forced to lean heavily on other people’s interpretations of events. In the case of this novel, most accounts that I read of Turkish history and specifically the Ottoman Empire, were written by Europeans with an inevitable bias.

How much research do you do before you start the novel?

It varies, but in the case of A Tale of Two Sisters, I read a good deal about the Ottoman Empire in the early years of the twentieth century. It was a time of political upheaval with calls for democracy and lots of different groups vying to overthrow the Sultan. I also read about the empire itself - its history over four hundred years and the way in which Topkapi Palace or indeed any of the Ottoman palaces were organised according to a strictly observed hierarchy. There are several articles on my website - www.merrynallingham.com - that look at the role of women within the empire and the way in which the system of slavery worked. You might be quite surprised!

You are with a new publisher. How have you found the transition?

I moved from a large conglomerate publisher to Canelo, a smaller independent firm but one that is growing fast. I’ve found everyone approachable and very friendly. In terms of book production, the editorial advice, copy editing, the jacket cover, have all been excellent. So I’m a happy bunny!

What is the central theme of your novel?

The novel is a mystery and a romance, but at a deeper level it raises questions of identity, of the complexity of family relationships, and the triumph of love against the odds.

Do you have a special time of day when you write?

I tend to do ‘stuff’ in the morning - exercise classes, Italian lessons, meeting friends - so my writing time doesn’t usually start until after lunch. Then I’ll work until six or seven in the evening. I seem to need those morning hours for my brain to get into gear.

Give us an insight into your main character. What is it about them that would make a reader want to go on the journey with them?

In fact, I have two main characters, since the story is told from both sisters’ perspectives. On the surface, Alice is the quintessential daughter of the Edwardian era. She has dutifully run the Verinder household for years and, after her brother’s death and her sister’s escape to Turkey, is left alone to care for ailing parents. Over the years, she has lost sight of the person she used to be, and it takes a desperate situation to help her recover the ‘real’ Alice. For Lydia, too, it’s the threat she faces that makes her realise for the first time how dear her family is to her. Each sister is forced to confront difficult feelings and face catastrophic loss. But both come to know reconciliation and the power of love.

What authors inspire you?

Lots do, but if I had to choose only one it would be Kate Atkinson. I love her style, the way she blends the literary and the popular. She’s also a writer willing to take chances and try different genres. Her first novel won the Orange Prize and a few years later the Jackson Brodie crime series was filmed for prime time television - you can’t get more versatile than that!

Have you any desire to write in a different genre?

I’ve wanted to write crime for a long time. I started out writing pure romance, but saw each book getting darker than the one before, and once I moved into mainstream women’s fiction, there was always a dead body somewhere in the story. But I was told quite firmly by those in the know that the odd body doesn’t make for crime. So this year I’m taking the plunge and publishing my first real crime novel - and with more than one body!

What next for Merryn Allingham?

In July, The Venice Atonement hits the shelves. It’s the first of a crime series set in different locations around the world, some of them definitely exotic. The books feature the same trio of characters - and the development of their relationship is probably as important as the crimes they solve. At the moment, I’m having fun writing number two in the series which is set on a fictional island in the Caribbean. I wonder, what could possibly go wrong?

You can buy A Tale of Two Sisters here: Amazon    

Find out more about Merryn at the links below:

Website: www.merrynallingham.com

Facebook: www.tinyurl.com/m322ovu

Twitter: @MerrynWrites

Merryn Allingham was born into an army family and spent her childhood moving around the UK and abroad. Unsurprisingly it gave her itchy feet and in her twenties she escaped from an unloved secretarial career to work as cabin crew and see the world.

Merryn  still loves to travel and visit new places, especially those with an interesting history, but the arrival of marriage, children and cats meant a more settled life in the south of England, where she has lived ever since. It also gave her the opportunity to go back to 'school' and eventually teach at university.

She has written seven historical novels, all mysteries with a helping of suspense and a dash of romance - sometimes set in exotic locations and often against a background of stirring world events.

Inspiration from a Lost Garden - Guest Post Merryn Allingham

There is nothing I like better than inviting good friends back onto Wendy's Writing Now - especially when they have a super new book out! Today, that person is the writer, Merryn Allingham. I first met Merryn at a gathering of local RNA members and she soon became a friend whose advice I value. She is a super writer and if you haven't read any of her books, you are definitely missing out.

Today, Merryn is answering my questions about The Buttonmaker's Daughter which is set in Sussex in 1914.

Can you remember where you were or what you were doing when the idea for The

Buttonmaker’s Daughter first came to you? 

I was on a visit to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. Our guide had a fund of anecdotes and one he told was particularly poignant. It concerned the ordinary working men whose labour had created these beautiful gardens - a single image really, that lodged in my mind and set me writing.

The gardens’ heyday was in the late Victorian/Edwardian eras, several owners spending large amounts of time, money and effort in creating a veritable paradise. But in 1914, war came to England and everything changed. One day in the summer of that year, every gardener on the estate downed tools together and walked to Redruth to enlist at the local recruiting centre. Most of the men never returned, perishing in the mud of Flanders. The Day Book that would normally list jobs completed, that day carried only the date, and was never used again.

It was the image of those men, honourable and courageous, walking together to enlist in what they saw as a just cause, that stayed in my mind, and I knew I had to record that moment in a novel.

Can you describe your novel in one sentence?

As war and family conflict threaten the Summerhayes estate, Elizabeth Summer must decide how best to save her family from danger, yet stay with the man she loves.

  

How long did it take to write The Buttonmaker’s Daughter?

I did several months’ research in addition to what I already knew of the period, reading up on the social history of the country house, for instance, the timeline of the First World War, emigration to Canada and so on. Then three to four months writing a first draft, and another three months or so after that redrafting and hopefully refining. Around nine months in all, which is about average for me for a 90,000 word novel. But, of course, I wasn’t finished with the book then. There were agent’s suggestions to consider – whether to adopt or adapt or reject them. Then the editor’s revisions, the copy edits and finally the author alterations which was my very last chance to modify the ms. Giving birth to a book is a lengthy process!

What was your favourite chapter to write?

It’s difficult to choose a particular chapter but if I had to, I’d say the one in which Elizabeth finally takes the action she must, to save her lover and her family. That chapter also sets her on the path to a new future. (I’m saying no more – I don’t want to give the plot away!)

Is the Summerhayes mansion based on a real place?

The gardens of Heligan gave me the inspiration for the novel but the Summerhayes estate is my invention – I actually drew a detailed plan of its various parts. As for the house, Heligan’s mansion was long ago transformed into private apartments and I’ve no idea what the house looks like. In any case, Summerhayes had to be a ‘modern’ mansion because Joshua Summer, a Birmingham manufacturer, is ahead of his time and loves new inventions. And a modern mansion in the early 1900s was an Arts and Crafts house. I’ve put some of the pictures that were important to me on Pinterest.  https://uk.pinterest.com/merrynallingam/the-buttonmakers-daughter/

What attracted you to this period in history?

1914 was a cataclysmic moment for this country and I feel a deep attachment to the world that was lost then. The First World War affected millions of lives across every class and community, with so few understanding the reality of a war they were called to join. A veneer of innocence was lost and Britain was thrown into a century of total change. It could be argued as the most significant moment in our history. Philip Larkin's poem MCMXIV says it all:

Never such innocence,

Never before or since,

As changed itself to past

Without a word

Do you see anything of yourself in any of your characters?

I always seem to write feisty heroines, usually young women fighting to gain their independence and the chance to live their lives as they decide. So maybe!

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I see a lot of my family, go out with friends for lunch or a film or the theatre. I’m a member of a book club and I enjoy being part of two different writing groups. I go to several dance exercise classes every week. Oh, and I’m learning Russian!

What does your family think of your writing?

My husband is hugely supportive, diligently reading every novel as it’s published and telling me how good it is. My son is proud of me, but doesn’t have time to read books, or so he says, and prefers his entertainment to be visual. My daughter-in-law tries to read them but she is Russian and the language is sometimes a struggle for her. And my daughter likes to hear what’s happening to me writing-wise but tells me she’ll only read my books once I’m no longer here. I’ve never been sure what to make of that!

What suggestions do you have to help a writer write better?

• Don’t constantly self-censor. Relax and let the words flow. Some of what you write you’ll want to delete, but the rest will be worth keeping. A few sentences will be pure gold.
• Read as much as you write. And read widely, not just in your genre.
• Writing can be a lonely business, never more so when rejections start to flow, so you need to keep believing in yourself. If you look at the biographies of many of today’s most popular novelists, they’ve often been writing for years. Wasn’t it Lee Child who said, ‘It took me ten years to be an overnight success.' 

Bio:

Merryn Allingham worked for many years as a university lecturer and between job, family and pets, there was little time to do more than dabble in writing. But when the pressures eased, she grabbed the chance to do something she’d always promised herself – to write a novel. Under the name of Isabelle Goddard, she published six Regency romances, but in 2013 adopted a new writing name and a new genre. The Daisy’s War trilogy, set in India and London during the 1930s and 40s, was the result.

Her latest books explore two pivotal moments in the history of Britain. The Buttonmaker’s Daughter is set in Sussex in the summer of 1914 as the First World War looms ever nearer and its sequel, The Secret of Summerhayes, forty years later in the summer of 1944 when D Day led to eventual victory in the Second World War.

If you would like to keep in touch with Merryn, sign up for her newsletter at www.merrynallingham.com

Links:

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Passion for the Past - Guest Post Merryn Allingham

Today, I am delighted to welcome historical writer and friend Merryn Allingham to my blog. Merryn's third book in the 'Daisy's War' Trilogy 'Daisy's Long Road Home' was published on 27th August. I have all of the trilogy on my kindle and, having read the first and loved it, can't wait to read the rest!

Can you remember the moment you knew you wanted to write?

I can’t pinpoint an exact moment. I think I must always have had a need to write. I do remember lying on the floor as a young child, pencil in hand, and writing myself poems. And at grammar school, writing several strange short stories but never daring to mention it – creative writing was definitely not encouraged. Then there were long letters home when I was working as cabin crew (pre internet and mobile phones) and at least two ten-year diaries. So, in some form or other, I’ve harboured the impulse to put pen to paper for most of my life.

What is it that drew you to historical fiction?

Apart from an enjoyment of history, it was probably the sense of escaping to another world that I loved most. A world that might seem familiar, yet in fact was quite unfamiliar. In historical fiction, I get to live in different houses, wear different clothes, meet different people and confront different choices. And I hear characters from the past much more clearly than contemporary voices. For many years, my staple reading was 19^th century novels, I wrote my PhD thesis on Thomas Hardy, and when I began teaching, the 19^th century was my special period. It’s no wonder that ‘historical’ comes more easily to me!

You grew up in an army family. What was that like?

It was certainly interesting and gave me a far wider experience of the world than many children my age. But at times it could be lonely – being an only child wasn’t helpful -  and every few years I had to learn to make a new life for myself. Definitely character building! I changed schools frequently – at one point I attended four different schools in two years - so there were always new friends to make. But on the plus side, I could be seen as unusual, even exotic, by my new schoolmates. I remember someone in the Welsh grammar school I’d just begun to attend, commenting on how well I spoke English – for an Egyptian! (my father had just been posted back to the UK from Egypt). But wherever we ended up, and in whatever house, my mother made it a home for us.

What writers have inspired you?

In the 19^th century, Jane Austen for her humour and subtle feminism, George Eliot for having a brain the size of a planet and Thomas Hardy for his storytelling magic. Today, I think Kate Atkinson and Sarah Waters are my pick – they write popular, page turning books, without sacrificing an inch on style. Sheer brilliance.

If you had a time machine, what period in history would you visit?

I’d go back to the Regency, but only if I were a member of the top one hundred familes in the country. I think I could grow used to a Mayfair town house, six balls a night during the London season, and lazy summers spent on my family’s vast estate. Not to mention the flattering outfits I’d be wearing – I’ve always wanted to own a reticule. But it would have to be a visit. I wouldn’t have coped at all well with the constraints women faced at the time and the lack of freedom to forge one’s own path.

 What would you say is the biggest pitfall of writing historical fiction?

It will vary, I guess, between  writers. I do a lot of reading and research for each book so for me, it could be wanting to tell my readers everything I’ve discovered. When I started the Daisy’s War series, for instance, I gobbled up books on 1930s and 1940s India. The struggle for Indian independence was enthralling, a huge drama played out on a huge stage. But readers rightly want a story and I couldn’t allow my  fascination with the period to run away with me. The story always has to be central, and the research simply a way of fleshing out setting and background to create a deeper interest.

Daisy Driscoll is the heroine of your ‘Daisy’s War’ trilogy. Can you describe her in three words and do you see anything of yourself in Daisy?

Brave. Determined. Loyal.

I doubt I’d be as brave as Daisy, faced as she is with making her way through life as a poor orphan, and constantly beset by secrets and danger. But I’m certainly determined and I hope, steadfast. They are probably the qualities I admire most.

When you wrote The Girl from Cobb Street, had you anticipated it would become a trilogy?

Definitely not. The project started with a marriage certificate – my parents’ - which I unearthed from a pile of papers at the back of a cupboard I was clearing. My mother travelled to India in April 1937 and was married in St John’s Afghan Church in what was then, Bombay. Even now India is exotic, hitting you in the face with its difference. But in the 1930s, the journey took three weeks at a time when most people rarely ventured far beyond their homes. I tried to imagine how it must have been for a working class girl who had never been further from London than a day at the Southend seaside, to travel to what was an alien world, thousands of miles away, and marry a man she hadn’t seen for some time - six years in my mother’s case! And so my heroine, Daisy Driscoll, was born, facing the same hazards in her new life as my mother had - and then far more, with a deceitful and desperate husband who threatens her with disaster. And by the end of The Girl from Cobb Street, I knew I couldn’t leave my heroine there. I was certain she was going to have more adventures, and equally certain that eventually she would reach safe harbour – even if it took three books!

   

The first two books are set in India and London, respectively. Can you tell us a little about the final book in the series?

The trilogy traces ten years in the life of Daisy Driscoll and in the final book, Daisy’s Long Road Home, we meet her in 1948. The war has been over for several years and she is now a qualified Sister, nursing in Brighton. India meantime has suffered a blood-stained partition of the country. Daisy is convinced that the roots of her identity lie in the East and is desperate to find the truth. She leaps at the chance to leave her lonely life behind when her old lover, Grayson Harte, travels back to India to find a missing colleague. In a series of adventures, she gradually uncovers long hidden and dangerous secrets about the family she never knew, but eventually wins through to find the happiness she deserves.

What next for Merryn Allingham?

The next project will be a two book series – a duology? –this time linked through place rather than a character. The first novel is set in the long, hot summer of 1914 and the second in the summer of 1944. Both were crucial moments in this country’s history. The setting is Summerhayes, a large house and estate that includes an amazing garden, situated somewhere in Sussex. The gardens offer a rare beauty and should be a place of calm and tranquillity, but the estate is riven with conflict – between neighbours, within the family itself, and, of course, there is conflict on a far larger scale with the rumblings of war in Europe growing louder every day. A Dangerous Summer follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the Summer family, particularly my heroine, Elizabeth, from May 1914 to September of the same year, when thousands of men walked into recruitment centres to volunteer, signalling the real start of  the bloodiest war ever.

The second book links with the first, through theme and character as well as setting (to say why would give the plot away), but in 1944 Summerhayes is a shadow of its former glory and is being used by the military in the Second World War as a training ground and jumping off point for the invasion of Europe. It’s also the setting for more nefarious deeds. So plenty more drama!

Thank, Merryn for being a lovely guest.

Merryn Allingham worked for many years as a university lecturer and between job, family and pets, there was little time to do more than dabble in writing. But when the pressures eased, she grabbed the chance to do something she’d always promised herself – to write a novel. She’d taught 19^th century literature and grown up reading Georgette Heyer, so it seemed natural to gravitate towards the Regency period. That was over five years ago and in that time, she has published six Regency romances under the name of Isabelle Goddard. It has been a splendid apprenticeship but it left her wanting to write on a larger canvas and more mainstream fiction. In 2013, she adopted a new writing name, Merryn Allingham, and a new genre. Daisy’s War, a suspense trilogy, is the result. The books are set in India and wartime London during the 1930s and 1940s and the first in the series, The Girl from Cobb Street, was published in January this year. Books two and three followed in May and August, 2015.

Buy Daisy’s Long Road Home from Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/o9hqneg

Website: www.merrynallingham.com

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/m322ovu