Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Cavaliers Playlist

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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I’m feeling extremely excited tonight. Ivory Terrors is finally released tomorrow, and that’s the Cavaliers Series completed and four years of work come to an end. Earlier, I did some last checks and double-checks and bits of formatting, but now, I’ve uploaded the book to Amazon and Smashwords and that, substantially, is that. 

Tomorrow, I intend to get emotional on here. I need to do some looking back and some looking forward, and offer some thanks. But for tonight, I’m keeping things fun, with a post I’ve been meaning to write for ages.

Books will always be my first cultural love, but music comes a close second. I’ve often said that when it comes to books, for me, while brilliant prose is always a bonus, the plot is by far the most important element. I take a rather similar view with music. I love a great tune, but it’s the lyrics that make a song for me.  My favourite books often remind me of my favourite songs, and vice versa. And having spent so long thinking about The Cavaliers, it’s unsurprising that there are a number of songs that I always associate with the series. 

I love finding playlists for my favourite books, and I’ve been meaning to put together one for the Cavaliers almost since Oxford Blood was published. The main think that finally made me get round to it (apart from feeling a bit demob happy after the final Ivory Terrors edit) was receiving an email from someone who’d read Oxford Blood, and alongside some other lovely comments, mentioned that, “During the early scenes of Harriet with Tom, before they were actually an item, before she knew what he was. The way they connected without understanding why, I heard Rihanna’s “Stay” playing in my head. Not just the lyrics but also the angst of how she sings them definitely reminds me of Harriet during those parts.”

I hadn’t consciously heard the song beforehand (though I’ve obviously listened to it since) but it made me so happy to think that someone was connecting with something I’d written in just the way I’ve connected with all the books I love. Anyway, here’s my list. You can listen to all of these songs via my Spotify playlist:  

1)Moves Like Jagger (Maroon Five) and Break Your Heart (Taio Cruz)

If you fall for me
I’m not easy to please
I might tear you apart
Told you from the start,
Baby from the start.
I’m only gonna break, break your, break, break your heart. 

I associate both of these songs with the Cavaliers in general. The charming “no girl can resist them” side, and the flip side, where “no girl can keep them.” I think both songs apply very well to pretty much all the members, but they particularly rmeind me of George. 

I don’t need to try to control you
Look into my eyes and I’ll own you
With them moves like Jagger
I’ve got the moves like Jagger

2) A Lady of a Certain Age (Divine Comedy)

Back in the day you had been part of the smart set
You’d holidayed with kings, dined out with starlets
From London to New York, Cap Ferrat to Capri
In perfume by Chanel and clothes by Givenchy

This is a song about how it doesn’t matter how rich and beautiful you are, one day, you’re going to get old. Adelaide French begs to differ. The opening verse sums up her lifestyle, and the (in the song, self-deluding) chorus seems eerily appropriate for a woman who looks like her daughter’s slightly older sister:

“You wouldn’t think that I was fifty three”
And he’d say,”no, you couldn’t be!

3) Love Lust (King Charles) and Love Blood (King Charles)

Well I’ve got love in my blood, and I’ve got you on my brain.
I haven’t got enough blood, I cannot love you enough.
If you’ve got love in your blood, if it is bolder than death
Oh let it spill, let it spill, over the heart you love best.

I mentioned this way back in one of my first ever blog posts on here. I don’t think it’s meant to be about vampires, but the combination of obsessive love and darkness (not to mention all the blood references!) work perfectly. 

Love Blood (a different song by the same musician) also has the slightly discomfiting refrain, “Never let a woman go even when you know she can always be replaced. She can always be replaced.” Firstly, it was utterly bizarre to see King Charles in concert and listen to the whole audience (me included) cheerfully singing along to that chorus. Secondly, all I can ever think of when I hear it is what Harriet always refers to as, “George’s little fan club,” the girls he keeps half-mesmerised so he can call on them whenever they need a snack. 

4) Pretty much anything by Vampire Weekend – if pushed, I’ll go with Taxi Cab

They may be American, but few bands better sum up the atmosphere of Oxford than these guys. I don’t think I’d ever have got Oxford Blood finished without their first album on repeat. This one is less about any specific lyrics, and more about the general preppy mood they conjure up. And then there’s this wonderful quotation from the lead singer about their three albums. You’ve got to like one of your favourite bands referencing one of your favourite books, and I can’t imagine many other musicians saying this,, which reminds me why I tend to love trilogies, and which applies to my novels to some degree:

“It reminded me of Brideshead Revisited,” said Mr. Koenig, who writes the band’s lyrics. “The naïve joyous school days in the beginning. Then the expansion of the world, travel, seeing other places, learning a little bit more about how people live. And then the end is a little bit of growing up, starting to think more seriously about your life and your faith. If people could look at our three albums as a bildungsroman, I’d be O.K. with that.”

That said, I do love the following verse, which reminds me of one of my favourite scenes in the whole trilogy (albeit one I sometimes wish I’d managed to put a slightly better spin on) when Harriet goes to the Cavaliers Dinner with George, shortly after he bit her on the Steele Walk:

In the shadow of your first attack
I was questioning and looking back
You said, “Baby, we don’t speak of that”
Like a real aristocrat

And of course, there’s always Oxford Comma’s rather apt, “I’ve seen those English Dramas too. They’re cruel.”

5) Atlas (Julia Johnson/Gray)

I struggle to put into words just what it is about this song that reminds me of the books. It’s much less easy to relate the lyrics to the plot, but there’s something about it that really catches the same part of my imagination. If Vampire Weekend was the soundtrack to writing book one, her album and King Charles’ got me through Screaming Spires. In particular, it’s these lines, which always make me think of Harriet’s progression through the series. I came so close to emailing the author and asking if I could quote them in the final part of Ivory Terrors:

They say take what you want and pay for it, so I do

They say learn from your mistakes and I learned from you

6) Set Fire to the Rain (Adele)

This is a relatively new addition to the list. It’s a great song about intense, destructive relationships. I’ve suggested before that I steer well clear of this sort of emotional torture in both real life and contemporary fiction, but somehow, for me, everything is better with vampires. The song works well for the whole series, but I’m also going to be ridiculously specific and suggest that you put it on in the background for Chapter Eighteen and a certain section of Chapter Nineteen of Ivory Terrors, because it’s just perfect for it. 

But my knees were far too weak
To stand in your arms
Without falling to your feet

But there’s a side to you that I never knew, never knew
All the things you’d say, they were never true, never true
And the games you’d play, you would always win, always win

I’ll stop there, otherwise I could easily carry on all night. I’m very tempted to do another of these at some point, or maybe even a chapter by chapter run through of one of the books. I hope you’ve found some new songs through this, and don’t forget to grab a copy of Ivory Terrors tomorrow. 

Does anyone else have any songs they associate with the books?

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REVIEW – Dreams of Gods and Monsters

27 Sunday Apr 2014

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For the last couple of weeks, cruel person that I am, I’ve more or less banned myself from reading. Ivory Terrors needed finishing, and then more recently, I needed to prepare for the launch – May 1st, this coming Thursday, in case anyone is in danger of forgetting. It’s surprising how much time doing the final read-through and formatting, requesting reviews, and organising a blog tour takes up. When I’m actually writing, other people’s books inspire and motivate me. When I just need to get my head down and get everything perfected and organised, they risk getting in the way. I decided I needed my imagination firmly inside The Cavaliers, and not in someone else’s world. 

This self-imposed denial was made rather easier by the fact that my beloved Kindle broke a month or two ago. It’s much simpler to resist the lure of an intriguing novel when getting it involves either leaving the house or waiting a few days for it to be delivered. 

But then, my well-intentioned plans were thwarted. Because I realised that Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone No.3) was going to be released on 16th April. And having loved the first two books in the series, and having been waiting for it for ages, and having considered it to be my second most eagerly anticipated book of the year (No. 1 is Ruin is Rising), there was simply no way I wasn’t going to buy it on release day. Conveniently, release day pretty much coincided with the long Easter weekend, so I thought I’d be justified in losing myself in a book. And purchasing myself a shiny new Kindle Paperwhite. 

The review is below. In short, it was good, which is lucky, as it’s so long that reading it took up a good proportion of that weekend!

DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS- LAINI TAYLOR 

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THE BLURB

By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.

Common enemy, common cause. 
When Jael’s brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.

And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.

But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz … something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.

What power can bruise the sky?

From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy. 

At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?

THE REVIEW – 4 STARS

I hugely enjoyed the first two books in this trilogy. If you’re reading this review, I bet you did too, and I bet nothing I could say could put you off buying it. I absolutely couldn’t wait to read it, and on the whole, this final book doesn’t disappoint.

All the old characters make a return, along with some interesting new ones, and both the war-focussed and the romantic plotlines are satisfyingly resolved. This is an extremely long book (I read it on my kindle, but the hardcopy must be around 600 pages), but between the intriguing plot, engaging characters, and strong writing style, it never dragged – though I found it to be slightly less of a page-turner than the previous instalment.

This series has always trod a strange line between YA paranormal romance/urban fantasy, and the sort of full-blown high fantasy that George R Martin would be proud of.For me, the first book fell more into the former category, especially towards the end, while the second book prioritised war and history over forbidden love. This instalment falls somewhere in-between, combining scenes of relatively normal life on earth with full-scale battles in another world.

I enjoy both of those genres, but I prefer this series when it focusses on the latter, and gives the reader strange creatures and conspiracies in other worlds rather than concentrating on the romance between an angel and a (more or less) human girl. For some reason, the relationship between Karou and Akiva doesn’t do much for me. He doesn’t capture my imagination, and they never seem to have much chemistry. Things were better in Book Two, when there was real tension and distance between them and I started to warm to their story, but here, the author seemed to be manufacturing reasons to keep them apart, and it didn’t really capture my imagination. It’s odd, because the relationship between the two supporting characters, Mik and Zuzana, is always both touching and funny, and a new cross-species love affair that sprung up in this book really touched me too.

The more fantastical side of things continued to be very well done. We get more history, more folklore and more of the ongoing war between chimera and angels, along with lots of internal conflicts within the two sides. We finally get to see the Stelians, a different race of angels with a totally different culture and history and different powers. There are all sorts of revelations and drama. With the new ruler of the angels “off-screen” for 95% of the time and the White Wolf dead, it sometimes felt like we were lacking an immediately loathable villain. The latter really made the second book for me, so though I couldn’t regret his well-deserved death, I did miss his effect on the plot. That said, Ziri’s attempts to portray him to keep the army under control and the internal struggles it causes him were some of the highlights of the book. Generally, I really couldn’t fault the fantasy side of things.

From reading some other reviews, I suspect I’m in a minority here, but one of my very favourite aspects was the completely new plot involving a genetics PHD student who has terrifying, literally heart-stopping dreams about the end of the world, in which the apocalypse is her fault, and who is hiding some initially undisclosed secret about herself and her family. The “what on earth is going on here” aspect of this reminded me of the sense of mystery I loved so much in the first book, when you didn’t know why Karou was collecting teeth for monsters. And when the answers were finally revealed, the backstory and revelations it led to were amazing.

Overall, not quite a perfect book, due mainly to the sometimes lacklustre romance, but a really fantastic one all the same, and absolutely worth a read. A fitting end to a great series.

 

Top Ten Tuesday – Unique Books

08 Tuesday Apr 2014

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It’s been far too long since I’ve taken part in Top Ten Tuesday, (see http://www.brokeandbookish.com/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html)  but I’m excited to have such a good subject to work with this week. I suppose unique books is a little ambiguous, but I’m mainly thinking in terms of structure and style rather than plot. If there’s one thing I really and truly love, it’s books that are written in an unusual way, be it a non-linear narrative, multiple points of view, or something even stranger. Many of my all-time favourite books fall into this category. Of course, if it doesn’t quite work, the result can be awful, but I still respect authors who give it a go. 

Ones I Loved

1) Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell – Five short stories (each written in a wildly different style and genre, and spanning centuries) are interrupted halfway through by the next story. Each protagonist is reading the previous text, may or may not be the reincarnation of the previous hero or heroine, and is interrupted at the same point as the reader. In the second half, the protagonists resume their adventures an their reading, and we work our way back through time and through the story. In between all the cleverness of the mindbending structure is some seriously good writing and several engaging plots. As regular readers may have picked up, if I was forced to pick a favourite book, it’d probably be this one. 

2) The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood – Parts of this story is the first person narrative of the eighty-something narrator. Other parts are her reminiscing about her childhood, the famous author sister who killed herself the day WW2 ended, and her unpleasant industrialist husband. Newspaper articles and other documents from the time about the three of them are interspersed. And every few chapters, we get The Blind Assassin itself – the science fiction novel that made the heroine’s sister’s name, which is itself a book within a book. The four (at least – it depends how you count them) aspects work together to tell the full story, and it results in a brilliant mash-up of contemporary, historical and sci-fi literature. 

3) Sarum – Edward Rutherford – Sets out to tell the story of 10 000 years of human history via lots of interwoven stories featuring the same families and the same area (Salisbury Plain) over centuries. The scope is jawdropping, and somehow, the author makes you care about almost everyone of the cast of (probably literally) thousands. 

4) What a Carve Up – Jonathan Coe – The hero is employed to write a history of the Winshaw Family, a clan of borderline evil aristocrats, by one of their members. Chapters alternate between modern day (well, early nineties) scenes of him researching, writing, obsessing over the eponymous film and being let down by the Government; some flashbacks to his younger years, and the story of each member of the family, told through diary entries, newspapers articles, and various other forms. And then from about two thirds in, the hero and the family meet, and things get very strange. It’s as laugh out loud hilarious, cleverly plotted, and viciously political.  

5) Before I Go to Sleep – AJ Watson – I reviewed this only a few weeks ago. The main character wakes up each morning with no memory of the last few decades or real understanding of who she is. The story is told through the diary she has secretly begun to keep, and the fact that she (and therefore the reader) has no idea what is or isn’t true makes for a disorientating experience. 

6) Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn – Obviously, this book has been wildly popular recently. For me, it’s not so much the (really rather far-fetched) plot that made me enjoy it, but the clever structure (and some great prose and killer lines). Chapters alternate between Nick’s (the husband) narration, starting with the day of his wife’s disappearance, and Amy’s (the wife) diary entries, dating back from the day the two first met years before, and gradually working up to a few days before her mysterious disappearance. The two storylines didn’t quite mesh, showing what a different perspective two people can have on the same event and keeping me guessing about what was really going on in the main characters’ relationship and what had happened on the day of Amy’s disappearance.

7a) Behind the Scenes at the Museum – Kate Atkinson – A chronological story of a girl growing up in Yorkshire in the sixties and seventies is interspersed with stories of her extended family stretching back to about 1900, and told out of order, so that the full picture only gradually becomes clear.  

Ones I didn’t enjoy so much but that I admire for trying

7b)  Life after Life – Kate Atkinson – The above author’s latest book was a bit of a let down to me, though it’s received rave reviews from many people and is certainly both unique and ambitious. The heroine is born, and dies moments later, choked by her umbilical cord. She is born again, and lives for a few months. The book endlessly returns to the scene of the baby being born, and to numerous scenes of her death – as a baby, a toddler, a teen, an adult. From smallpox, accidents, violence, war. It’s never quite clear whether these are reincarnations, parallel lives, or something in between. 

8) A Visit From the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan – It may have won the Pulitzer Prize, but I just couldn’t fall in love with this. Certainly written in an unusual way though. It consists of several stories, spanning about fifty years, and each centring around a different character, although each of them have links to some of the others, and one seems to be the key connecting link. The stories are told out of chronological order, which makes for some thought provoking moments, and uses different styles, perhaps most noteworthily, the story told in PowerPoint slide format! 

9) Room – Emma Donughue – Not one of my favourites, but certainly unique and memorable. It’s narrated by a five year old boy, who has been imprisoned in a single room ever since he was born to his kidnapped and raped mother. The fact that he believes the room to be the whole world, that he has his own names for things, and that he is utterly innocent about the horrors that are really going on makes for a truly unusual voice. 

10) The Lovely Bones – the heroine dies (horribly) in the first chapter, and then narrates the rest of the novel from heaven. A little mawkish in parts, but a pretty clever concept. 

Boat Race Day Year Two

06 Sunday Apr 2014

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It’s once again time for that great Oxford tradition – the Varsity Boat Race. I think I said pretty much everything I wanted to say on the subject last year, but I can’t let the event pass unnoticed on my blog, so here’s last year’s entry again (slightly edited to reflect it not being Easter and there being a different team etc) in all its glory. And now I’m off to the river. Go Oxford! 

***

In my books and, occasionally, on this blog, I write about all sorts of Oxford traditions, but there’s nothing as high-profile and popular as the annual Varsity Boat Race against Cambridge.

An awful lot of Oxford’s traditions seem to be deliberately complex and odd, almost as if half the point is to confuse outsiders: Merton students running backwards around their quad on the day the clock changes, ultra-prestigious professors at All Souls hunting the ghost of a duck, or the almost pagan-seeming celebration of May Morning at my own old college of Lilith Magdalen. Not to mention the fact that said college is pronounced Maudlin. Now that one I really do think is purely for the purposes of making tourists look stupid.

Even the normal term-time boats race between colleges are pretty complicated if you’re not used to them, based as they are around several boats setting off at once and trying to bump the ones in front of them.

The Varsity Boat Race however is entirely simple. In fact I’d say it’s one of the most straightforward sporting events going. The participants are always the same – one boat of eight men and a cox from Oxford and one from Cambridge. They row along a stretch of the Thames and the first one past the finishing line wins. There’s no offside rule or complicated scoring system to worry about here.

Perhaps because of this, pretty much everyone in Britain seems to at least vaguely like the Boat Race. In some countries, university sport is really popular. In the UK, that isn’t the case and the Boat Race is pretty much the only university sporting event that gets mainstream news and television coverage. And if you go down to the river, you always find the sort of crowds you’d usually only associate with a major national occasion. I think some of the bars near there must be kept afloat almost entirely from their takings on this one day.

The really weird/fun thing is that in my experience, most people with no connection at all to either university seem to have a team they nominally support. I liked the Boat Race long before I ever seriously thought about applying to Oxbridge, and to my eternal shame, when I was very young I randomly supported Cambridge. I think I liked their colours better or something.

There’s lots to admire about the Boat Race. It’s one of the few genuinely big ticket amateur sporting events left. Although in practice both teams nowadays often contain a good few people who row for their country and are doing slightly suspect post-grad degrees, in theory I love the idea of normal students training so incredibly hard for their moment of glory, and you still always get a few rowers who genuinely fit that mould. Looking at last year’s Oxford squad, one is a doctor and one is a vicar – in what other sporting event would that happen?

The other great thing is just how physically demanding it is. With the possible exception of those really long distance cycling races, I think it probably requires some of the highest fitness levels of any sport. They row for 4.2 miles at top speed.

Now, in my first term at Oxford, for some reason best known to myself, I thought it would be fun to give rowing a go. I’m 5’2”, 8 stone and have all my life been reliably rubbish at any sport I’ve attempted. However, I spent most of that term in a bit of a frenzy, wanting to do Oxford properly, so taking up rowing, a sport predominantly based around being very strong and very fit, seemed eminently sensible because IT’S WHAT PEOPLE AT OXFORD DO.

rowing

 

Although I immediately gave it up once that term was over, it actually didn’t go so badly. In fact (and I hasten to add that this was in no way thanks to me), my college’s women’s boat actually won the term’s competition. The point of this story though is that the race I did was over a course about 750 metres long. And afterwards I was absolutely physically exhausted. I literally cannot imagine how tiring rowing for 4.2 miles must be. It actually makes me feel slightly sick when I think about it too hard! So my respect for the people who are fit enough to do this is phenomenally high.

And speaking of being fit, every year at least some of the crew are just gorgeous. And usually the really attractive ones tend to be really quite posh too, which needless to say is a combination I like. Here are this year’s squads – http://theboatrace.org/men/squad-list Though I’m sadly slightly unwhelmed this year on the whole. 😦

Despite all this, when it comes down to it, what I really love is the tribalism. I want Oxford to win to an extent that borders on the irrational. And that’s just the way I like my sport. As a rule, I love sport, but generally only if I have some personal interest in the outcome. Growing up in Sheffield, everyone was into football. You supported either Sheffield Wednesday or Sheffield United, and you did it wholeheartedly. I was (and indeed still am)  firmly in the former camp, because supporting Wednesday was what my family did, going back several generations. On Steel City Derby Days (when the two teams play each other) the city wass like a ghost town. Everyone was watching, at the stadium, in a pub or at home on TV. There is no logical reason to love one group of footballers based in your home town and hate another group of them based in the same place, but there’s something oddly satisfying about doing so. It creates a real sense of belonging. Occasionally, in London, in the middle of a busy street or train, I’ve spotted someone in a Wednesday shirt and I’ve just had to go over and speak to them.

hendersons_wednesdayIn Sheffield, even condiments come in rival team packaging

 

In Sheffield, even the condiments come in team colours! 

The Boat Race gives me a similar feeling and arguably with slightly more reason. I went to Oxford. Oxford made me the person I am today. I owe it my job, my fiancé  an awful lot of my friends, some of my hobbies and interests, and I suppose, my books (I’m not convinced I could have made “UCL Blood” work). So watching those boats speeding down the river, I really feel like the result personally matters for me.

Anyway, the race is on the BBC at 5.55 UK time  (for foreign viewing, see here:http://theboatrace.org/men/tv-and-radio). Whether or not you have any connection with Oxford, Cambridge or any other university, I strongly suggest that you pick a side, get yourself a glass of Pimm’s and settle down 

Ivory Terrors – sneak preview of Chapter One

05 Saturday Apr 2014

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So a few days ago, I announced that Ivory Terrors is now finished and will be published on the 1st May. As a little celebration, I’ve posted the first chapter (not including the prolgoue, which I’ll explain more about in a few days time) below. Enjoy! 

Chapter One

 “Where are we actually going? I think I’ve proved I’m on your side, whatever side that is. You must be able to trust me now.”

“Richard will explain everything when we arrive. Until then, it’s not my place to tell you.”

“I still can’t believe you’re the inside man. I’d have guessed almost anyone else. I suppose you can be a little bit renegade at times, but you’ve always seemed so dedicated to the Cavalier cause.”

Harriet listened groggily to the voices around her. George’s aristocratic drawl and her mother’s clipped voice were unmistakable, though she struggled to understand what the latter had to do with George’s kidnap attempt. The other voice reminded her of her uncle’s broad Yorkshire tones, but that would make no sense at all.

She tried to force herself into full wakefulness, but couldn’t quite make her eyes open.

“She’s waking up,” her mother said, sounding genuinely alarmed. “Put her back under.”

George sighed theatrically. “Is that really necessary? Couldn’t we just let her come to and explain things?”

“Explain what? I don’t have a clue what we’re doing, never mind being able to explain it to my daughter. Let’s get to safety, and then we can talk.”

Harriet managed to open her eyes for a split second, long enough to tell that she lay in a narrow bed, with George leaning over her. She tried to speak, but George put his finger to her lip then touched his forehead to hers. A blast of mesmerism radiated through her and she blacked out again.

 ***

 “How long do you think it will be until Augustine realises we’re gone?” In the time that Harriet had been asleep, her mother’s tone had become more panicky.

“From the alarms at the Party, I think he realised before we even made it to Richard’s jet. But don’t worry about that. Another hour and we’ll be at his stronghold, and even Augustine can’t reach us there.” Despite his reassuring words, George sounded faintly hysterical.

Harriet tried to think logically about the situation. She’d been mesmerised into attending the Summer Party against her will. Nick had been turned and had tried to drain her, but she’d turned his mesmerism back on him. Then Rupert had forced her to wake Nick up by threatening Catherine and Katie, at which point, he’d killed Julia. 

Beyond that, things got hazier. George had lured her into the woods, and offered her revenge on both the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. She’d thought she could resist him, but when he kissed her, she’d let her guard down, and then he’d mentally knocked her out.

She had no idea what George was planning or where he was taking her. She should have known better than to trust him even for a moment. But why was her mother involved? And who was the third person? She’d never heard a vampire speak like him before.

“Can’t you wake her up?” the stranger asked. “I’ve waited for twenty years to speak to my daughter. I can’t say I like you treating her like this.”

Even with her eyes closed, she could sense George leaning over her again. “She’s almost woken up naturally. It’s a little alarming. She’s becoming more and more resistant to mind control. Frankly it’s exhausting to keep her under.”

“One more blast,” her mother said. “That should last until we arrive. And darling, you’ll be able to speak to her soon. Think how much nicer it will be to have that moment on a balcony over a river, safe and plotting, rather than on this old jet, panicking and fleeing.”

Harriet understood the individual words, but the context barely made sense. His daughter? Augustine had claimed to be her father, but in her view, she only had one dad, and he’d been dead for years. Yet in her head, he always spoke like the stranger.

Once more she tried to force her eyes open, desperate to see whether the stranger looked like the man pictured in her locket.

“I’m sorry,” George whispered, touching his forehead to hers. “Just one more time, I promise.”

 ***

 “What do you know about this?” Augustine said.

On the surface, the leader of the Cavaliers seemed to be as poised as ever, but Tom could sense the interior breakdown taking place under his calm facade.

Rupert sprawled in a chair, pinned there not by ropes but by the sheer force of Augustine’s will.

“Nothing. Of course I knew nothing, my Lord,” Rupert said, speaking too fast, too loud. “I’m one of your most loyal servants. And I’m the last person George would confide in.”

Augustine paused for a moment before replying. “You have a point, I suppose. But Adelaide was always close to you. Think carefully. Did she say anything that suggested she was planning to flee?”

“No my Lord, I swear. Whenever I spoke to her, she seemed more in love with you than ever. I refuse to believe she can have gone willingly. George must have taken her too.”

Augustine took a step back, and allowed Rupert to stand. “I’ve locked down the clearing,” he announced. “So don’t anyone think about trying to leave. My wife is gone, my stepdaughter is gone, my prisoner is gone, and one of my most powerful lieutenants has disappeared. I will get to the bottom of this.”

Caroline’s turn in the chair came next. One moment, she was clinging to Ben for dear life. The next minute, she sat in the hot seat. Vampires could only be mesmerised by their makers, but in this, as in so many things, the rules clearly didn’t apply to Augustine.

Caroline, usually always so self-assured, started to cry before Augustine even began his interrogation.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said immediately. “Harriet hasn’t spoken to me in weeks. I’ve had the odd telephone call with Adelaide, when she felt I needed extra support, but not the sort of conversation where she would confide in me. And as for George…”

“As for George, you seem to have been spending rather a lot of time with him,” Augustine said. “Enough time that I thought you’d have been top of his confessional list.”

“Well he didn’t tell me he planned to abandon me and run off with Harriet,” Caroline said, still sobbing. “It’s not exactly the best sort of pillow talk. Everyone always said not to trust him, but I thought that I was different. I’m a vampire after all. I’m not one of his interchangeable human girls. But once again, he seems to have chosen her.”

“We don’t know what he’s chosen,” Augustine snapped. “I don’t think this is an elopement. Young lovers don’t generally invite the mother-in-law along.”

With a shrug, he released Caroline and she fell into Ben’s arms. Ben’s willingness to support Caroline after her weeks of absence made Tom smile even through his pain. In his experience, a crisis tended to reunite a couple like nothing else could.

“Tom Flyte, I need to speak to you next.”

The wood, with all its torches and fairy-lights, blurred for a moment, and then Tom found himself in the chair. Augustine’s powers never failed to astonish him.

“Do you know anything about this?” Far from tiring him, each interrogation seemed to increase the force of Augustine’s power.

 “How can you even suggest that I have anything to do with this?” Tom said. “I would never be that disloyal. And how can you think for a moment that I would support any plan that involved Harriet running away with George? He’s a total psychopath. He doesn’t care about her, he doesn’t care about anyone. Let me help. I swear that I’m on your side. I love Harriet. I want to save her from this.”

Augustine gave him an appraising look. “I believe you. Perhaps you alone understand some of my pain. Tell me – do you think my Adelaide has gone freely?”

Tom looked him in the eye. “No more than my Harriet. I blame George for all of this.”

Augustine nodded. “I’m letting down the defences. You can all leave, and I’d suggest you do so quickly, before the sun comes up. Rupert, Tristan, Tom, you’re coming back to London with me. We have plans to make.”

 ***

 Katie dragged her shaking body out of bed. She wanted to sleep for a hundred years, but she had to get up and face the day. She resisted the temptation to run out onto the street, screaming about what she’d seen. The brain that had always plotted for the most prestigious internships and eligible men knew that that would be counterproductive. Go to the police with her hair wild, her make-up undone and her breath smelling of alcohol, and her story would sound like the ramblings of a madwoman. But have a shower, brush her teeth, put on her best interview suit and a subtle string of pearls, and maybe someone would listen.

She forced herself through the old familiar routine of washing and preening, trying to get her story straight in a head that just wanted to break down. She wouldn’t use the term vampires, she wouldn’t. No one would buy that.

She tried to think of the most rational way to put it. She’d been at a party. Some of the guests had bitten some of the others. Some of them had died. She’d been bitten herself, but she’d survived. Julia Jenkinson had died. Sofia Calvinos. She wasn’t sure of the other names.

She downed a strong black coffee that did nothing to quell the tremors that had overtaken her, and then strode out of the door before she could change her mind. In the quad, she hesitated. It would be better if she had someone who could collaborate her story, but who could she ask? Caroline had stood there watching it all. Harriet had all but ordered Julia’s death. And her darling William, the nicest man she’d ever met, had plunged his teeth into her neck. No. She had to do this alone.

The twenty minute walk to the police station seemed to take hours. Aside from the mental trauma, the blood loss had left her physically weak. Once she’d dealt with the police, she might just have to visit the hospital.

When she finally made it, the young desk sergeant gave her a friendly welcome. Between her pretty face, her imposing voice and her obvious wealth, Katie generally expected people to treat her with that sort of respect, but today, his politeness hugely relieved her.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’ve been attacked. At least four people have been murdered. Probably more.”

The sergeant’s mouth fell open. He’d clearly been expecting her to report a stolen purse.

“I think you’d better come through to the back and sit down.”

Katie nodded and followed him in silence, still debating how to make her story sound sane. Someone fixed her a cup of tea, and then the man from the desk left. He returned a few minutes later with his superior in tow.

“So you say you want to report four murders?” the senior officer asked, staring at her through narrowed eyes as though she were the criminal.

 “Have you ever heard of the Cavaliers? They’re a dining society. One of them is or was my boyfriend. I went to their party. For a while, it was lots of fun, but then they started their initiation ceremony. I don’t quite know how to explain this, but basically, they bit people. They bit the boys they’d chosen first, but they were okay. All the girls seemed totally out of it. At times, so was I, but for some reason I kept snapping back to consciousness. Then when the boys woke up, they bit us. And most of the girls there died.”

The two police officers looked at each other. “I think I’d better get the Chief Constable,” the more senior one said. “Stay here with her.”

Katie desperately tried to engage the young sergeant in conversation, but he wouldn’t look at her. After a few minutes, the other officer returned, accompanied by a severe middle-aged man, who waved the other two out.

“Tell me,” he said, when he and Katie were alone. “What do you think happened last night?”

“I suppose they were crazy,” she said awkwardly. “I’d heard weird stories about the Cavaliers, but I put it all down to bravado. Turns out they really are psychopaths.”

The Chief Inspector laughed. “No need to be so coy, my dear. Tell me what you really think happened. Say the word you’ve been so carefully avoiding.”

His calm acceptance blindsided her, but she forced herself to continue. “Fine. They’re vampires. The Cavaliers are a society of murderous vampires. Now what are you going to do about it?”

The Chief Inspector smiled, but his eyes remained blank. “I’m not going to do anything about it. I’ll leave that to the special team at Scotland Yard. Unfortunately they won’t be available until nightfall, and until then, I’m going to have to take you to the cells.”

 ***

 Josh stared at the news website, barely able to comprehend the words his eyes were seeing.

“A 21-year old girl died today in tragic circumstances.”

The words swam on the page. His eyes couldn’t focus on anything but the picture of Julia the BBC had selected to accompany the news story. He recognised it as one that he’d taken the previous summer at the ball. They must have copied it from Facebook. She looked beautiful and fragile in equal measure.

He wanted to close the page and pretend that none of this was happening. Instead, he clicked on the video news story.

“Julia Jenkinson, a popular student at Oxford University, was the victim of a stabbing, after stepping in to save a child from an attempted kidnapping. A forty year old man is helping the police with their inquiries.”

The presenter’s solemn words drifted over him. He reached into the top drawer of his desk and drew out a letter. When he’d found it in his pigeonhole a few days earlier, he’d considered it as a cry for help from a girl who seriously needed the support he so desperately wanted to give her. Now, it seemed all too prescient.

“I’m writing this in a brief moment of clarity. I don’t believe I’ll survive the Cavaliers’ party. If I die, don’t believe their lies about my suicide or accident. The society will have killed me, just like Stephanie and Alice and so many other girls.”

He forced his attention back to the screen. A striking middle-aged woman with red hair, easily identifiable as Julia’s mother even without the caption underneath, tried her best to answer an interviewer’s questions through her tears.

“I can’t believe this has happened,” she sobbed, echoing Josh’s thoughts exactly. “My beautiful, clever daughter.”

“It must at least be a comfort to you that she died saving someone else,” the newscaster said.

Julia’s mother nodded. “It helps a little. That sums my darling girl up. Always helping others.”

The camera diplomatically panned away.

“Harriet told me the truth, and the more I see of them, the more I believe the unbelievable – they are vampires. If I don’t make it back from the party, go to her. Make her explain. Make her help. Avenge me.”

“I’m so grateful to her,” an equally tearful woman said, cuddling a small boy to her. “She saved my little boy from God knows what. I’ll bring him up to remember her. I hope the man who did this rots in prison.”

Josh looked back and forth between the letter and the computer screen, unsure what to believe. The news report sounded a thousand times more likely than a gang of vampires. And yet, what were the chances of Julia predicting that she’d be murdered on a certain night and then dying in an unrelated incident? Besides, her strange behaviour over the last few weeks took some explaining.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so distant, scathing even. Rupert does something to my mind, I can tell. Most of the time, he’s all I can think about. I feel as though I love him more than I thought possible, and I utterly detest you. But then there are nights like tonight, when I haven’t seen him for a few days and he’s out of town, when my real feelings come back. I want to come to you tonight, but I don’t dare. So I’m sending this letter before I change my mind.”

The news report went on and on, almost as if someone wanted to ensure no one had any questions in their mind about how Julia had died.

 Rupert appeared on the screen and Josh looked away. At best, Rupert had stolen Julia from him, at worst he’d done something terrible to her mind and probably been responsible for her death. He’d never wanted to hit someone so badly. Rupert looked artfully distressed, his stupid posh face arranged into a tragic frown. His stuck-up voice stumbled over some words as though he could barely control his distress.

Josh had hoped that the filming was live, so he could see Rupert standing in the morning’s bright sunlight, and put aside the ridiculous idea of him being a vampire. There was no such luck. The news crew had clearly filmed his segment last night, soon after Julia’s death.

“It was terrible,” he said to the obviously enthralled female interviewer. “We hadn’t spent many weeks together, but I really loved Julia. I thought we’d have years to get to know each other better. All I can think of are the things I should have said to her and whether I could have done anything to save her from that madman. ” He wiped away a tear. “I’m sorry. I can’t go on.”

Josh had seen enough. He slammed down the lid of his laptop before he put a fist through it. He read the last line of the letter for the hundredth time.

“Please believe that I still love you. I’m sorry I’ve put myself in so much danger and I’m sorry I made you help. You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. If they kill me, don’t let it be in vain.”

Since he’d first heard the news, Josh had been too shocked to cry, but now the tears fell freely. He wanted to crawl into bed and never get back up, but that would be the ultimate betrayal. He’d do what Julia had wanted. He’d speak to Harriet, make her tell him the truth, and then get revenge.

Ivory Terrors update

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Good news! After a year and a half of frenzied planning, writing, editing, and proofing, I’ve finally finished Ivory Terrors, the third and final instalment of the Cavaliers Series. 

It’s 135 000 words long – nearly twice the length of Oxford Blood. And at it’s longest, it was closer to 160 000. I’ve had to do some really quite brutal cutting to make it readable. 

Never again will I attack my favourite authors for what I’ve always regarded as cardinal sins – taking ages to produce a sequel or writing a self-indulgently long volume. Because my goodness, it’s tempting. Knowing I will never write another full Cavaliers book (although one thing I’m considering as a future project is a book of historical short stories about different members in different time periods), I wanted to get in all the backstories, all the revelations, and wrap everything up nicely. And I hope that when you read it, you’ll agree that I’ve succeeded.

I was always absolutely clear that the Cavaliers Series was meant to be a trilogy, and one thing I hate above all others is when authors drag series out beyond their intended duration. There may have been some twists along the route, but nearly everything that happens at the end of Ivory Terrors was meant to happen from the start of Oxford Blood – the reviews that wondered why Stephanie couldn’t be mesmerised in the prologue might finally get their answer. 

 In particular, I’ve really gone to town on Augustine. It started out as a prologue about his turning, and ended up at something like 20 000 words giving most of his life story, across a variety of centuries. As a history graduate, I’ve always tried to infuse the series with a historical flavour, but this is the first time I’ve gone full historical, and I hugely enjoyed it. It was also fun to take a character who has always been a bit of a cipher – almighty leader of the vampires – and imbue him with a personality and a past. 

Anyway, I’m now planning to publish the book on May 1st – as readers might remember, May Day is hugely important in Oxford, so it seemed fitting. I’m in the process of setting up a blog tour and some advance reviews – if you have a blog, have read the earlier book, and would like to get involved, please drop me a line.

Finally, thanks to the surprisingly large number of people who’ve emailed me over the last few months to ask when Ivory Terrors would be ready. You’ve simultaneously made me feel horribly guilty that it’s going to be about five months later than originally promised, and yet so utterly happy that there are people who want to read my books that you’ve really inspired me to get it finished. 

Now I’ve finally finished, I’m hoping to be able to dedicate more time to my sadly neglected blog. So keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks for soundtracks, a mini-series on the inspiration for my characters, and some Ivory Terrors extracts. And now, despite the fact that its Tuesday and I have work in the morning, I’m off for a Harriet-style glass of midweek champagne.

Blurb below. Put May 1st in your literary diary, and treat yourself to a copy of the most ambitious thing I’ve ever written.

A Tale of the Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal…

No one ever claimed that third year at Oxford University is easy, but Harriet French has more to worry about than just her final exams.

Richard, an ancient vampire with no love for Cavaliers or Roundheads, has dragged Harriet to his French fortress as part of his quest for revenge and power.  Can Harriet support Richard’s plot to kill Augustine? He may have the country in his thrall, but he’s still family. She has no such qualms about killing the Roundhead leader Fea and her twin henchmen, but is she willing to sacrifice herself to do it?

And then there’s George, once the archetypal Cavalier, who now seems to have betrayed both Harriet and the society. It’s hard to be sure about anyone’s true loyalties and harder still to know the right thing to do.

Ivory Terrors concludes the story told in Oxford Blood  and Screaming Spires of Harriet French’s time at Oxford and her involvement with an elite vampire society.