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The Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal

The Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal

Tag Archives: Oxford

The Riot Club and The Cavaliers – dining societies in fiction and in life

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cavaliers, dining societies, Oxford, posh, riot club

Here’s the trailer for The Riot Club, a film that’s just been released this week. Look at the beautiful Oxford buildings. Look at the handsome but psychotic boys in white tie. Look at the girl with the (dodgy) northern accent. Oh, they are all members of some sort of evil dining society. If you want a synopsis of the Riot Club, think Oxford Blood without the vampires.  Basically, I like to sit back and pretend this is a trailer for the film adaptation of my books. That’s not so wrong, is it? (Seriously, watch and allocate characters to actors. It’s quite astonishing how well they map together- check out Harriet at 0.17 and Augustine at 0.43, for a start!)

I haven’t yet seen the film (it’s so on this weekend’s to do list), but the plot isn’t new to me, and not just because it’s eerily similar to the sorts of plot that tend to flow out of my brain. Before it was a film called the Riot Club, it was a play called Posh. And let me tell you, when I see adverts for a play about an Oxford dining society featuring attractive young actors, nothing and no one is capable of keeping me away from the box office. I went to see this in 2012, when I was busy finalising Book One. As I sort of knew what was coming, just for fun, I dragged Freddie along, we wore black tie, and he walked round in the interval drinking champagne and drawling, like an extra or a piece of interactive performance art.

In between deliberately trying to provoke the rest of the audience, I had mixed feelings about the play, and from what I’ve seen and read so far, I imagine my reaction to the film will be broadly similar. On the positive side, there were the aforementioned formally dressed men. On a less shallow note, the writer had also clearly researched certain aspects of Oxford life rather well, and there were some very clever lines and some very funny comments. On the negative side, it’s probably some of the least subtle satire I’ve come across, and it relies far too much on the idea that posh=bad, and membership of a dining society=outright evil. I also got the distinct impression that 90% of the point of the play was to create a stick to beat the ex-Bullingdon Tories with.

It never ceases to amaze me the extent to which so many people are absolutely fascinated with class, and have such a love-hate relationship with aristocratic trappings. Dining clubs are admittedly a bit of an odd phenomenon, and when I started writing the Cavaliers, I was very much playing up to the media controversy around the Prime Minister, the Mayor and the Chancellor all having been part of the same club (for anyone not familiar with the concept, see my article here – weirdly, it’s consistently one of my most visited web pages).

But do I really think there’s a conspiracy? No. Do I really think that the Bullingdon (or indeed the Piers Gaveston or the Stoics or anything else) is the route of all inequality in our society? No I do not. Yes, it’s a little disturbing that the Government is currently dominated by both a certain type of person and, perhaps more oddly, by what sometimes appears to be a group of old friends and rivals. But unlike in the Cavaliers, in real life, a dining society isn’t a gateway from obscurity into power. Rather, the only people asked to join the big societies are those who are already rich and well-connected. They’d have got on just fine without the club – they really are a symptom, not a cause of the old boys’ network.

In my experience, most dining societies are borne neither from a desire to rule the world nor an urge to smash things up and humiliate “poor people.” Rather, just like football fans, sports teams or political gatherings, they are about two things – getting drunk with likeminded people, and a sort of tribalism that divides the world, at least for one night, into a safe categorisation of them and us. And in the case of dining societies, there’s some extra fun to be had from dressing up and showing off. To the best of my knowledge (based on both personal experience and extensive book-planning research) the smashing places up, while true and abhorrent, is also very rare – a few isolated incidents over decades, not a systematic campaign of violence. The murdering, which we get in both the Riot Club and the Cavaliers (and in it’s American incarnation, in Donna Tartt’s the Secret History) has no basis in fact whatsoever.

When I created my imaginary dining society, I made the members vampires. As a consequence, I made most of them be awful human beings most of the time- I cannot abide overly friendly vampires. My books are paranormal romance/urban fantasy first and foremost, but they also contain a hint of satire – and hopefully, it’s all so exaggerated that everyone can see it’s not a genuine attack on Cameron and Boris and Osborne. In keeping her characters as broadly realistic humans while still having them do and say terrible things, the Riot Club’s writer ultimately sacrifices the clever social commentary of the premise and the opening, for cheap, overblown attacks which hint at a genuine belief that the Prime Minister once entertained himself by beating pub landlords to death.

In conclusion, dining clubs are a bit ridiculous, but not actively evil or a direct cause of any of societies problems. And based on my experience with Posh, the Riot Club is probably worth a watch for the scenery and the eye candy and the wonderful Oxfordyness, but pretty heavy-handed. And most importantly, it would have been much better with vampires.

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Tales from my wedding

01 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by georgianaderwent in Personal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

black tie, Oxford, personal, photographs, posh life, wedding

WARNING – it’s probably best to avoid this post if a)you have absolutely no interest in my personal life and/or b)weddings leave you cold. But I’d assume that anyone who reads this blog ormy books has some taste for romance and some interest in pretty pictures of Oxford and people in black tie.

You may have read the section of my bio that states, “Georgiana lives in London with her fiance.” You may have noticed the nauseatingly sweet dedication at the front of Oxford Blood, “To F, the man of my overheated teenage dreams.”  If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you might remember the post from December 2012 in which I excitedly announced my engagement. If you’re a newcomer, you might have been introduced to the blog and the series via my recent, wedding-themed giveaway. In short, you may have noticed that for quite a while now, there’s been a wedding on the horizon. 

Well, it’s on the horizon no longer. So, in what I like to think looks remarkably like stills from an Oxford Blood movie, here are  pictures from my amazing wedding on August 16th at Magdalen College, Oxford. 

The bride and groom

 

with assorted bridesmaids and ushers

My parents

My parents

 

With some friends

With some friends

 

Aggressively cute cake

Aggressively cute cake

Yorkshire roses for the bridesmaid

Yorkshire roses for the bridesmaid

Overly long train

Overly long train

And then in the evening, we changed and we danced

And then in the evening, we changed…

...and we danced...

…and we danced…

And everyone was so beautifully dressed up

And everyone was so beautifully dressed up

Finally, I leave you all with one amusing book and wedding related fact. The service was conducted by a Bishop who is my now-husband’s Godfather. Bizarrely, he’s read my books – well, one and two anyway. Even more bizarrely (and wonderfully), he referenced them in his sermon, explaining that he hadn’t yet read Ivory Terrors, but could only hope that the heroine ended up with the character who was clearly based on the groom. Cue slightly horrified looks from those members of the congregation who have finished the series, and a gentle shake of the head from the long-suffering man himself!

Anyway, it was a great day, and I had a lovely honeymoon in Bali afterwards. I’ve got lots of reviews to post over the next few days thanks to all my holiday reading, and after such a relaxing time I’m feeling invigorated and ready to make a start on my next writing project. Oh, and you might have noticed that in honour of my Oxford wedding, Oxford Blood was free for a few days. Thanks to everyone who downloaded it and who bought one or both of the sequels afterwards. Just to perfect an already amazing month, August 2014 has been pretty much my most successful ever month for book sales – and all with me not going anywhere near a computer for nearly three weeks!

Boat Race Day Year Two

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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Tags

boat race, cambridge, cavaliers, Oxford, rehashing last year's post because I'm lazy, rowing

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

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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Tags

ivory terrors, Oxford, pre-release chapter, the cavaliers, vampires

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.

Review of Before I Go to Sleep

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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before I go to sleep, book review, Oxford

Friday was my seventh anniversary of getting together with my lovely fiancé Freddie, and we spent it in Oxford, wedding planning during the day and having lots of fun in the gorgeous Malmaison hotel in the evening.

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It’s always slightly odd to visit Oxford nowadays. I do it about once or twice a year on average, and I can generally barely remember how to navigate the place, but it always helps to refresh my writing. Malmaison is built around the old Oxford Castle, and the weird mound that I use as the Cavaliers headquarters/cells in Screaming Spires. It was very strange to wake up and see that through my bedroom window in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

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I seem to be promising this every week, but now I’m starting to get drafts of Ivory Terrors back from my beta readers, there’ll be a post with a cover and a definite release date asap – within a week maybe, or two if I’m really lax. 

For today, here’s a review of a book that everybody seems to have been talking about for a while, and that I was in two minds about whether to read, but have finally got round to: Before I Go to Sleep. 

BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP – SJ WATSON 

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The Blurb

Memories define us.

So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep?

Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight.

And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.

Welcome to Christine’s life.

The Review

You know how when you really love someone, you’re aware of their faults, but they somehow don’t bother you in the slightest? That’s how I felt about this book. Sometimes, I read negative reviews of books I’ve really enjoyed, and can barely believe the reviewer has read the same book as me. That’s not the case here. If you look on Goodreads or Amazon, you’ll find several one star reviews that accuse the book’s plot of being far-fetched, contrived and predictable – and on reflection, I agree with them. And yet I managed to entirely suspend my disbelief whilst reading, and I enjoyed it so much that those faults don’t bother me one little bit.

The story was so compellingly written and whizzed along at such a pace that I could barely wait to find out both what was going to happen next and what was really going on. There was a great air of mystery, and of tension, even fear. Most of the time, the heroine does little more than wander around her house, write in her diary, look at old photographs, and have dinner with her husband. And yet the author rachets up the pressure so that these superficially homely scenes have more drama and menace than most authors manage to achieve with scenes of a police shoot-out or a bank heist.

Amnesia has been used many times before in books and films (this particularly reminded me of Memento), but this book makes it feel fresh, and really gets you thinking about what it would be like to wake up every morning not knowing who you are or what happened either the day before or ten years ago. Even without the underlying sense that something creepy was going on, this premise would have been terrifying and moving enough on its own.

Christine is the ultimate unreliable narrator – so unreliable that even she has no idea whether or not she’s telling the truth about anything that has happened previously. For the last few decades, following an initially unspecified accident, she loses her memories every time she goes to sleep, and each morning has to be reminded of her age and reintroduced to her husband. But when the book opens, she’s started to write a diary on the advice of a new doctor. There’s a bit of conventional present tense narrative to open and close the novel, but the bulk of the text is made up of this diary, which slowly starts to give her the thing she’s lacked for so long – a sense of continuity and of who she is.

Previously, with no frame of reference, Christine would accept anything her husband told her as absolute truth, but through her journal, she, and the reader, start to realise he is hiding things, if not outright lying. But it’s never clear whether he’s doing it to protect her, for his own convenience or for a darker motive – and the evidence swings back and forth as the days pass, until the reader is unsure what to believe. The journal and the slow reveal both worked really well for me.

I’d highly recommend this as a quick, thrilling and unique read. I’ve gone for four stars rather than five as it’s ultimately a little lacking in substance and because while the overly convenient plot devices didn’t spoil my enjoyment, they did stop me from regarding it as a truly great novel.

Photos of Cavalier Locations

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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Oxford, photographs, the cavaliers

I spent the weekend in Oxford, the first time I’ve visited since before the publication of Oxford Blood. It really is quite alarmingly beautiful and I felt filled with both nostalgia and inspiration for Ivory Terrors (The Cavaliers: Book Three).

While I was there, I thought it might be fun to take some photographs of some of the locations in the novels to help readers visualise them better (I spent three years living there, of course, but most of my photos from my uni days are of me and my friends, rather than our surroundings).

***

This is the staircase where Harriet and Tom are meant to live during her first year. I real life, only second and third years would have rooms in here, as at my college, first years lived outside walls in a tower block. But there was no way in hell I was setting any part of a paranormal romance novel in a concrete sixties monstrosity.

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This is New Building and its lawn, referred to as The Manor in the books. It’s where the Cavaliers do their Mayday champagne duelling.

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“Beyond the Manor Lawns was a huge metal gate emblazoned with the college crest. It led to the Steele Walk, an area of woodland by the river on the outskirts of the college.”

 

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…and this is what it’s like out on the Walk. You wouldn’t believe you were in the middle of a city.

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“Eventually, they reached Harriet’s favourite place. The path opened out slightly, to reveal a small, rickety looking bridge over the water. She dashed onto it and beckoned to George to follow.”

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And as this is the nearest bit of tree and grass to the bridge, I’m going to claim that this is where George then first bites Harriet.

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“The dining hall was in the oldest bit of the college, a dark, stone, four-sided cloisters, There were mysterious doors at irregular intervals along the ancient walls. Harriet could only presume they led into tutors rooms and meeting rooms, but wouldn’t have been overly surprised to discover that they were doorways into other worlds. They reached the sweeping stone staircase to the hall.”

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““I’ve heard the King’s Arms is good,” said a boy that Harriet vaguely remembered from the club night. “Apparently quite a few people are going there.”” Moving away from the college, this is the pub where Harriet first speaks properly to George.

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“Harriet stood at her new desk and stared through the leaded window, out into the quad. It was walled on three sides with tall honey-coloured stone buildings and open to parkland on the fourth side, with an immaculate grassed square in the middle.”

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And here are some deer. They live in the college. I didn’t give Lilith College a deer park, because although I’d expect readers to suspend their disbelief enough for the vampires, I thought deer seemed a bit far fetched. Seriously, if I was designing an educational institution, I’d think of teaching rooms, and places to sleep, and some social rooms, and maybe some facilities for sport and socialising and music. A herd of deer would be pretty far down the must have list! I love them though.

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And finally, for the benefit of all those reviewers who’ve complained that Harriet drinks far too much champagne in the books, this is what you have to put up with in Oxford:

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Wahey, First of May

01 Wednesday May 2013

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magdalen, may day, may eve, may morning, Oxford, Oxford Blood, personal memories

Today’s the first of May. As I’m currently living and working in London, this doesn’t mean much other than that maybe summer’s finally round the corner. For the three years that I spent at Oxford however, May Eve and May Day were filled with tradition and a real sense that something was happening. There were lots of interesting days in Oxford, but May Eve was always a particular favourite of mine.

Accordingly, in Oxford Blood, it’s May Eve when the plot really starts racing toward its conclusion and it’s probably the evening I linger over the most.

In the words of Caroline, “Summer doesn’t really get going until May Eve. There’s an all night party, then in the morning the choir sing from the tower. Once that’s done, we’re finally allowed to sit on the grass and use the punts.”

And to quote Tom, “It’s time for some fun of our own. Did you find out what it is they say about the first of May? Way-hey, first of May, outdoor fucking starts today.”

May morning magdalen

I don’t entirely know what the origins of Oxford’s weird May Eve celebrations are, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that it’s more than a little pagan. The year before starting at Oxford, I went through a bit of a pagan phase, and the 30th April/1st May is the time for the celebration of Beltane, the celebration of sex, fire and the start of summer. Outdoor sex was generally considered to be a standard part of that ceremony.

If I do say so myself, my college, Magdalen, was always the epicentre of the May Eve phenomenon. Officially, the entire point of the event is that at dawn, the Magdalen College choir sing from the tower. And fair enough, both the tower and their voices are beautiful.

This being a student event however, in practise, it’s mainly an excuse for a party. And also, for a wonderful endurance test of trying to stay awake long enough to actually hear the choir sing at 6AM, on an evening that always seemed to be spitefully cold and rainy. We had bops every other week at Oxford, but the May Eve bop had a special intensity to it. Everyone seemed to turn out. Then afterwards, it was a glorious combination of chatting in people’s rooms, wandering the town, and wandering the grounds of the college.

The May Eve sequence, at least up until the part where two vampires have a duel to the death, is one of the most autobiographical parts of my entire series.

In an old book about choosing universities, Magdalen had been described as “perhaps the most beautiful college in Oxford or Cambridge, known throughout the world for its tower, its deer park and its May morning celebration – when students throw themselves off Magdalen bridge into the river Cherwell.”

I read that phrase when I was about twelve and for some reason it stuck with me to the extent that when I was old enough to apply to university, as far as I was concerned, it was Magdalen or nothing. I saw the tower and the deer park from my first day, but I had most of the first year to get psyched up for the May morning celebration. There was something about the fact that I was participating in a ceremony that’s supposedly “known throughout the world” that sent me a little bit crazy.

It's really not a good idea

It’s really not a good idea

Much like Harriet, I spent most of the evening in a pirate outfit. I spent some of it at a party, dancing like crazy. I spent part of it alone in a room with a guy Ii’d thought was just a friend. I spent part of it in someone’s room, where eight people had been tied together. I spent another part with my three closest friends, drinking tea and updating them on what had been going on. It spent part of it in the common room, eating pizza and watching a film. At times, it honestly seemed like the night had been going on forever and was never going to end, and I was pretty happy with that state of affairs.

pirates

Just before dawn, I changed out of my pirate outfit into a summery dress (despite the fact it was still very cold) and staggered blinking into the sunrise, determined not to miss the choir. I stood on the grass at the centre of the quad and watched and listened and had one last glass of Pimms. With sleep deprivation, you get a fifty/fifty chance between everything seemed unbearable and everything seeming magical, and that morning, I was firmly in the latter camp.

When the choir sang, I had this really odd feeling of being part of something. And then, I saw a group of students in white tie having a champagne duel. It almost embarrasses me to admit this nowadays, but I didn’t make that part of Oxford Blood up. And no, despite my best efforts at scouring Facebook, there are no pictures. I think they must have been deleted for the sake of people’s political careers.  I was standing with my friends, and I could tell from their faces that they were taking the position of “what the hell are they doing? Didn’t they get the memo that Oxford is an inclusive place nowadays?”

I watched with a kind of weird fascination. I liked it. I wanted to be part of that world. And there was one boy who was taking part in the champagne duelling who I just couldn’t take my eyes off. I wanted that one. Sometimes you just know. It took me the best part of a year to get a chance to speak to him, but by the next May Eve, we were together and it was all about the rhyme. Nowadays, we’re engaged.

This is all a long way of saying that May Day is awesome. It’s a night and a day for saying that Summer is Coming, and a wonderful excuse for a party. And to celebrate the first of May, here’s the May Eve extract from Oxford Blood. For the full chapter, download Oxford Blood May Eve:

Oxford Blood

“Anyway, it’s time for some fun of our own. Did you find out what it is they say about the first of May?”

“I’ve still no idea,” she replied.

“Way-hey, first of May, outdoor fucking starts today,” he whispered, taking her hand and leading her out into the quad and then onto the Steele Walk as she giggled. Hands gripped tightly, they walked until they reached a sufficiently secluded spot, where he spread his jacket on the ground.

“Don’t mess up my outfit,” she said, giggling. “You don’t know how long it took me to get into this corset.”

“Then we’ll leave it on. It suits you.”

He pulled off her tights and her little pants, and leaving everything else where it was, began to play with her.

“Climb on top,” he commanded, once she was wet and squirming. “That should keep your clothes as perfect as possible.”

Harriet did as he suggested. He too had only removed the most essential items of clothing and was still wearing a white silk shirt and a bow tie and waistcoat in the Cavalier colours.

She frantically kissed him and stroked his soft dark hair as she rocked back and forth on him. They came almost together, and she collapsed exhausted onto his chest. He held her tightly, stroking her back as her breathing began to slow.

Afterwards, they lay there for a while. Harriet began to feel cold, but was utterly contented and had no wish to move. Tom, flushed with her blood and eternally warm, looked as though he could stay there forever, or at least until the sun came up. Eventually, he stirred himself.

“I need to get back for the champagne duelling,” he said languorously. “You should come. Unlike most of our activities, it’s fun to watch and safe for public consumption.”

Harriet thought it sounded slightly ridiculous, but couldn’t deny she was intrigued.

They walked back slowly through the woods. With summer on the way, the trees full and the river low, it already seemed less spooky than it had done when George had attacked her out there. It already felt like years ago. She thought of that night as the real beginning of her time at Oxford.

There were a surprisingly large number of people milling around on the lawns for the early hours of the morning. Some were still in pirate outfits, whilst others had managed to make time to get changed. The Cavaliers had grouped on the lawn in front of the Manor, a striking Georgian accommodation block. Several people were staring at them. Between their beauty, their elegant outfits and that other indefinable quality, they certainly stood out.

No speeches were made or formalities observed. For once, this seemed to be the Cavaliers just out to have fun. The format of the event was simple. Bottles of champagne were stored under the arches of the building. Two members would take a bottle each, shake it up and then run to their opponent, the objective being to release the cork at just the right moment to soak the other as thoroughly as possible without being soaked themselves. In between rounds, the contestants either swigged the remains of the bottles or poured them over each other.

Tom was entering into the spirit of the thing. He covered his first opponent in champagne but received a soaking from his second one.

Some of the onlookers were laughing and clapping. Others were just perving on the attractively soaked men, their white shirts clinging to their firm bodies. Plenty more, however, were mumbling about how it was pointless, excessive, and gave exactly the wrong impression of Oxford.

Harriet was enjoying the spectacle. She’d never seen the usually pristine vampires look so bedraggled.

The event ended, perhaps inevitably, with a showdown between George and Rupert. They fired at the same time, the two streams of champagne merging into one in mid air, soaking them both. It occurred to Harriet that with their perfect reflexes, they should both have been able to jump away in time, but perhaps that was against the rules.

Everyone was laughing as they all sat down on the grass, other than George and Rupert who were glaring at each other.

Harriet ran over to Tom. Embracing him in front of them all probably wasn’t sensible, but he looked so cute with his wet hair that she just couldn’t resist.

“How about a real duel?” George said suddenly.

“Don’t be ridiculous George. It’s getting on for sunrise, and there’s no need to spoil the fun,” Rupert drawled.

“Not with you, idiot,” George snapped. “With Tom. We still haven’t resolved this whole betrayal thing.”

Everyone fell silent and looked at her, stood with one arm around Tom. She felt a sudden sense of panic.

“Is that a formal challenge?” Tom asked in a strained tone.

“Oh absolutely,” George said, grinning now. “Are you going to come and watch Harriet? Who will you cheer for? I suppose I could always make sure it’s me since you lost your little trinket.”

“What does this involve?” she whispered to Tom.

“Well, we’d fight with swords most likely. Try and stab each other through the heart. The point is that we can take what ought to be mortal injuries and be fine in a few days time, as long as fire or wood aren’t involved.”

“Don’t do it,” she begged. “That sounds horrific.”

“If it’s a formal challenge, I don’t have much choice. I’ve already pushed our laws and customs to the limit by being with you.”

He turned to stare at George. “I accept then,” he said calmly. “But I want Harriet left out of this. No mind control.”

“Well, I think she should watch, and if she’s doing that, I don’t want her getting involved. I’m told stab wounds are unhealthy for humans.”

“If this is going ahead, perhaps I can exert just enough control to stop her from moving,” Rupert mused. “Would you accept that?”

“I think you all seem to forget that I’m not a vampire. I don’t have to play by your stupid rules,” she said.

“Of course not. You can walk away now if you’d prefer, and sit there wondering what is happening,” Rupert said. “But I think you’d prefer to see for yourself, and that means doing as we say.”

“Oh fine,” Harriet said. “Is this happening on the Manor’s lawn too? I’m sure everyone would love to see a stabbing. Now that really will give exactly the wrong impression of Oxford.”

“We’ll go to Oak Meadow,” Rupert said authoritatively. “They shouldn’t be disturbed there.”

Oak Meadow was by the river at a point that could only be reached via the Steele Walk. It was about fifteen minutes away from the college and with trees on three sides and water on the other, completely excluded.

“Doesn’t that involve crossing the river?” George asked dubiously.

“Absolutely,” Rupert replied, smirking. “But if you’re going to insist on this sort of childish behaviour I think you should put ridiculous superstitions aside.”

As a group, they headed for the large iron gates leading out onto Steele Walk.

“Someone needs to fetch swords,” George said. If he had any nerves about the upcoming fight, he certainly wasn’t showing them.

“I’ll go,” said Archie, who had spent most of the evening sitting around sulking.

Everyone looked at him in surprise.

“My goodness,” said George. “You’re actually willing to get involved in a Cavalier event? Does that mean you’ve got over your lost love?”

“No, and I probably never will,” he replied. “But I’ve always tried to do everything well. Maybe it will even work with this whole vampire business. Maybe if I prove myself you’ll give me the sort of boost you gave Edward.”

“Well, that’s the spirit,” said Rupert. “Still, I hope you’ll forgive me for not trusting you 100% after the way you’ve been acting all year. We’ll all be very grateful if you’ll go and collect the swords, but I want Crispin to go with you, just to be sure everything goes smoothly.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Archie replied.

With that, Archie and Crispin strode away towards Tom’s room, whilst the rest of them stepped out onto the Steele Walk. They mainly walked in silence, focussed on the serious task ahead. Harriet could barely believe that only an hour before she’d been wandering the same path with Tom, laughing and holding hands.

After a few minutes, their group reached the bridge that lead to the meadow. The younger vampires stepped over it nonchalantly, but the older ones had to be coaxed or even dragged across.

“Are the older ones just more superstitious or actually more affected by running water?” Harriet asked Tom, hoping the others couldn’t hear. He’d hesitated for a second or two then walked across the bridge without any real trouble. George, on the other hand, was acting like a startled horse. Harriet remembered his refusal to go on the bridge the night he’d attacked her.

“A bit of both really,” he replied. “It’s the same for most of our problems. The older and more powerful vampires are definitely more susceptible to sunlight. But they are also more nervous around crucifixes and things, just because they were brought up in a more religious time.”

“George is stronger than you, isn’t he? I mean, that’s just a fact.”

“That’s fair. This is your mother’s point after all. He’s a lot older, and he’s really worked on his powers. Plus, on a practical level, having been born into a seventeenth century aristocratic family, he’s probably just generally better at sword fighting than I am.”

“Do you know how to do it at all?” Harriet asked. Her heart was pounding. She didn’t think she could stand to see him hurt.

“Oh yes, I’m reasonably good as it happens. I actually fenced for Eton and then for the college, back in the twenties. But that’s rather different to training daily to fight in a war.”

Harriet didn’t ask any more questions. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answers.

The group sat down in the meadow, waiting for Crispin and Archie to return with swords. Apparently, all the Cavaliers were given one at the time they were turned as it was a symbol of the organisation.

“Would it help if I gave you more of my blood?” Harriet whispered to Tom.

“Well, I suppose it would, but I’ve already drank from you once tonight. I’m not sure it’d be a good idea to do it again.”

“Don’t be stupid. If it’ll help you at all, then of course I want to do it. Take as much as you need. I’ll recover fast enough, and there’s not that much on next week.”

Tom was clearly unsure, but she took his head and guided it to her neck. She would have preferred to do this somewhere private, but there wasn’t time for niceties. He bit down. At first, he drank slowly, cautious about taking too much, but within moments, his instincts kicked in and he began to drink deeply.

Harriet was nervous about the duel and despite her brave words, about allowing Tom to take too much blood, but she tried to stay calm. She stroked Tom’s soft hair as he drank and let herself drift into the euphoric trancelike state that a drinking vampire could induce.

“Here we are,” Archie shouted, reappearing with two swords. Tom broke off suddenly, keeping one arm around Harriet so that she didn’t fall to the ground. Archie threw one to George and the other to Tom. Both of them used their perfect reflexes to catch them easily.

“Where is Crispin?” Rupert asked suspiciously.

“He wouldn’t cross the bridge. Seems dreadfully old fashioned to me,” Archie replied.

“Oh well, we’d better get started. We’re running out of non daylight hours.”

Tom and George stood, and walked to the centre of the meadow. As soon as he let go of her, Harriet slumped down. She was sure that she’d never had as much blood taken before. It was all she could do to stay conscious, but if it helped Tom to win then she didn’t care.

Rupert counted down, and when he finished, the two vampires strode over to each other and began to fight. Harriet watched their battle in a daze. Both Tom and George moved incredibly fast, faster than any human could. They swung their heavy swords as though they weighed nothing, and dodged attacks that seemed impossible to avoid.

Harriet found it difficult to tell who had the upper hand, but she was relieved to see that Tom wasn’t struggling anywhere near as much as she’d feared he might. The fight went on and on. Harriet wondered how they were finding the energy to keep going.

“You’re better than I thought,” George shouted, laughing. “You ought to all but drain people more often. I always find it helps.”

Tom didn’t reply, just concentrated on fending off George’s attacks.

He’s starting to weaken, Harriet realised. Tom was still managing to neatly protect himself, but all of his energy was going into defence rather than attack.

“When does this end?” she shouted to Rupert, who was watching intently.

“It’s a fight to the apparent death. Basically, at some point one of them will take a wound that would kill a human. They’ll pass out but be fine after a while.”

As he was answering, George gasped. Tom had managed to catch his arm, cutting the skin. As she watched, the wound closed and healed. George fought back with renewed intensity. Both combatants were losing their cool, and before long, George had inflicted a similar cut on Tom. From then on, the fighting was frantic. They abandoned the careful defences in favour of risking all on stabbing at each other. Every few seconds one would make contact with the other’s body, cutting them terribly. Logically, Harriet knew that they would heal fast and that no real harm could occur, but she still felt sick watching it. The others had no such qualms, cheering either the one they supported, or any impressive move.

Suddenly, Tom had his sword to George’s neck, and everyone fell silent. Whilst she would rather it was George than Tom, Harriet could still hardly bear to see his throat slit. She closed her eyes involuntarily. It took all her strength to open them again, and when she did, she was horrified to see Tom on the floor. Somehow, George had dodged the sword and knocked Tom off balance.

Get up, she willed silently. She wanted to shout encouragement, but couldn’t find the strength. Before she knew what was happening, George had thrown Tom’s sword across the meadow. He leaned over him and thrust his sword down hard. She screamed as it pierced her boyfriend’s heart. Blood went everywhere. My blood mainly, she thought, before passing out.

Top Ten Tuesday – Words or phrases that make me pick up a book

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

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books, class, cornwall, medici, Oxford, reading, sheffield, time, top ten tuesday, vampires

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly feature hosted by the blog, The Broke and the Bookish – http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.co.uk/

Each week they ask people to write a top ten list of something on a literary theme. This week, it’s one of the most intriguing ones I’ve come across so far – Word and Phrases that make you pick up a book.

Places

1.  Oxford – Yes, I happen to have written a series of books set in Oxford, but this isn’t even a fix. Long before and long after I wrote Oxford Blood, I’ve been attracted to books set at England’s premier university (I don’t want to hear it, Cambridge fans). Partly, it’s that combination of recognition and nostalgia. Knowing exactly what a road a character is walking down looks like or what beers they serve in a pub a character visits really helps you identify with them, and a book that captures the Oxford experience well brings back wonderful memories of some of the best years of my life.

Above and beyond my personal preferences however, I think Oxford is objectively a great place to set a book, or indeed, a TV series. Firstly, it’s an utterly beautiful town, and everyone loves a picturesque setting. But most importantly, it’s a place where hundreds of people who are some combination of rich, clever, young, ambitious, good-looking and eccentric come together and live in close proximity under large amounts of stress, creating the perfect recipe for drama.

Examples: Brideshead Revisited (basically invented the “isn’t Oxford lovely” genre, even though only a small proportion of the book features posh boys at university whilst the rest is really fairly depressing). Career Girls (Only the first few chapters of this are actually set at Oxford, but those few chapters give the best representation of Oxford Union politics and student journalist I’ve ever come across)

2)Sheffield/Yorkshire – Before there was Oxford, there was Sheffield. And on the whole, novels about the two couldn’t be more different. One evokes images of floppy haired youths frolicking on manicured lawns, the other, surely men downing a pint before going down t’pit or t’factory. If I see a book about Sheffield, I pick it up with a sinking heart, because I know that it’s probably going to be grim, but for the same reasons around recognition as above, I’ll usually read it anyway.

There actually aren’t that many books about Sheffield specifically (if anyone has any recommendations, let me know) but when I expand out into Yorkshire more generally, it suddenly becomes quite a wide genre. I guess all the novelists live in Leeds. And once you’re further out, whilst there’s usually still a touch of grinding poverty, you also get fantastic moorland scenery.

northern

Examples: The Northern Clemency (set in Sheffield and a rare example of looking at middle class northerners); A Woman of Substance (servant girl from the Yorkshire Moors founds her own company and becomes billionairess. I inherently approve); Wuthering Heights (the classic tale of being a bit northern).

3) St Mawes/Cornwall – I have far less claim on this area than on the other two, but my family always used to holiday in St Mawes, and that area in particular, and the whole of Cornwall more generally, has always managed to exert a hold over my imagination. Cornwall is beautiful, in a wild, windswept way, and to me, it always has this sense of otherness about it. I like it’s odd mythology and it’s saints that aren’t recognised by any established churches. I think it’s pretty much the best place in the UK to set an adventure story.

Examples: Over Sea, Under Stone; The King’s General

kings general

Time periods and historical people

4) The Medici/Renaissance Florence – there’s something about the Medici family (the Renaissance rulers of Florence) that has always caught my interest. Lorenzo the Magnificent always seems to me to be one of the few examples in history of something approaching a benevolent dictator. A novel set in Renaissance Florence (especially one featuring  the Medici family) is always going to feature beautiful buildings, political scheming, brutality, philosophy and stunning art. What’s not to like?

5) Historical Women – I’m the sort of person who sees history in terms of characters, and there’s no archetype I like better than the women who defies the narrow box she’s been put into by society to gain power. Stories featuring genuinely strong modern women are quite interesting too, but it’s the historical ones that really get me. I wrote my thesis on an eighteenth/early-nineteenth century political player called Jane Osbaldeston, and one day I’d love to write a fictionalised, sexed up account of her life.

Themes

6) Vampires – there’s not a lot to say that I haven’t said at length on this blog previously (see this link for at an-length discussion of my thoughts on the genre). Nowadays, there are far too many vampire books that don’t really do it for me at all, but there’s still something about the genre that intrigues my enough to at least check out anything vampire related, even if I then hastily cast it aside.

7)Mythology – As a kid, I was obsessed with mythology, mainly Greek, but any ancient myths were fair game. In my teens, I dabbled with paganism, and although I abandoned that long ago, I still find the concept fascinating. My areas of interest change all the time. At the moment, it’s mainly the Celtic side of things that really gets to me. If it’s well researched, mythology, either as the main focus or as a side plot, can totally make a book for me, but few things annoy me as much as authors throwing mythological names into the mix seemingly based on a few minutes on Wikipedia.

Examples: The Dark is Rising (Celtic loveliness), The Forbidden Game/The Secret Circle (One of the things that made me first admire LJ Smith’s books over and above all the other YA paranormal writers was her brilliant grasp of, respectively, Norse and Greek mythology in these books)

8. Class – There’s something about class in all it’s complexity that I find oddly compelling. Sometimes, a simple story of rich, titled folk is enough, but what I usually crave is a tale of worlds colliding, of someone struggling to fit in  or pretending to be something they are not.  This can be fun in a historical context, but I actually prefer this sort of thing in a contemporary, or at least twentieth century, setting, where I can really appreciate the nuances.

snobs

Examples- Snobs/Past Imperfect Prep (The writer of Downton Abbey is the absolute master of this genre. Snobs is the perfect read for anyone who likes those “girls meets earl” type novels – a relatively realistic take on marrying into the aristocracy, and Past Imperfect tells the story of five debutantes in the 1960s and how they are faring in the modern world.

 9. Unconventional narratives – a bit of a pretentious one this, but anything that’s told from multiple perspectives or jumps back and forth in times or is told through newspaper articles etc etc tends to make me want to give it a go. It’s usually then about a fifty/fifty chance between me loving it or hating it, but I always admire the author for giving it a go.

Examples: The Blind Assassin, Cloud Atlas, What a Carve Up

10. Time – I couldn’t think of a better way to express this one. I sort of mean any book in which time plays a major part, whether it’s telling the tale of a town over hundreds of years, following the entire life of one person, featuring time travel or just lots of flashbacks. For some reason, these sorts of ideas make me feel fascinated and intrigued in roughly equal measure.

Examples: Sarum (tells the story of the area around Stonehenge over 10 000 years, featuring a cast of thousands); The Time Travellers Wife (obviously); The Spoils of Time (runs from the 1900s to the 1960s, and it just kills me to watch the main character grow old)

sarum

Boat Race Day

31 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

boat race, cambridge, memories, Oxford, personal, sheffield wednesday

boat race

Hurrah, it’s one of my favourite days of the year: Boat Race Day. I’m reliably informed that it’s also Easter Sunday, but really, priorities people.

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 this 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 I think I have to treasonously conclude that Cambridge’s Ed Bosson is winning my “hot posh rower award” this year, but he faces some stiff competition. (See update note at the bottom of the page)

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 is 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_wednesday

In Sheffield, even condiments come in rival team packaging

In Sheffield, even condiments come in rival team packaging

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 4.30 (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 to watch the best sporting event in the world.

Oh and Happy Easter too.

UPDATE – It’s just been pointed out to me that Ed Bosson isn’t actually rowing today. So I can, thank goodness, now give the hot posh rower award to an Oxford rower instead – for the second year in a row, I’m voting Constantine Louloudis http://theboatrace.org/men/compare-blue-boat/2013/7

The illustrated Oxford Blood

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Books, Personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

black tie, Oxford, Oxford Blood, personal memories, photographs

A few days ago, I was round at an old university friend’s house for drinks. They mentioned they’d read Oxford Blood and I asked them what they thought.

“I really enjoyed it. It brought back loads of memories. But I think we could find a Facebook picture for nearly every scene.”

So feeling nostalgic and a little tipsy, we proceeded to do just that. The lawyer in me feels compelled to say that the fact that someone appears in one of these pictures in no way implies they inspired any character!

The evening was going to begin with a pirate bop. Harriet fastened herself into the corset top she’d bought for the occasion and looked forward to the fun that would be occurring. She accompanied the top with a short, floaty black skirt and the fishnet tights that were an almost inevitable part of all the women’s bop costumes and half of the men’s. She threaded a ribbon printed with skull and crossbones through the laces of the corset and finished it all off with a pirate hat and sword she’d bought from the fancy dress shop. Having forced her hair into wild pre-Raphaelite curls and put on a ton of black eyeliner.

pirates

 

It was almost a relief when the exams actually started. It was rather surreal to dress up in sub fusc, the required outfit – white shirt tied with a ribbon, black skirt, black tights and shoes and of course the gown. It was traditional to wear a white carnation for the first exam, a red one for the last one and pink ones in the middle, all purchased by friends and given as a sort of good luck gift.

exams

 

The Founder’s Tower was smaller than the main college tower that the choir would sing from, but still one of the highest points in the city. She’d never been up it before as it wasn’t open on a day-to-day basis. It was worth it when they got to the top. She could see out across the city in all its glory, bathed in the pre-dawn half-light. Always slightly fantastical, it looked like a bizarre medieval toy town.

tower

 

The second dress was even better. It was almost ethereal, made of different shades of gold and bronze silk that overlaid each other. Tiny crystals subtly covered the bust area. She’d never seen a dress quite as beautiful. 

gold dress

 

The party began the moment that the sun went down. Each guest had been picked up from their college by an unordered taxi and driven out into the Oxfordshire countryside. One by one they had been deposited in a large clearing in the middle of a wood, several miles outside of the city. Stephanie was enchanted by the lanterns and flaming torches.

torches

As she walked into the hall, Harriet stared in amazement. It was huge – long and wide and high ceilinged. Windows decorated with various crests alternated with giant portraits of kings and soldiers and famous alumni. Some, like Queen Elizabeth I she recognised immediately; others were a puzzle. Long wooden tables filled the hall, each of them covered in candles and silverware and seating around twenty people. 

hall

 

That’ll probably do for the moment, though I’m happy to take requests. Got a favourite Oxford Blood scene or even just a favourite outfit from the book? As long as it’s not sex or murder, I’ll find the appropriate picture…

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