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| Welcome to my Blog! Wander through wonderful worlds real and fictional, meet interesting people, visit exciting places and find a few good books to enjoy along the way! |
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| the 5th Jan Christopher Mystery e-book available for pre-order paperback released soon |
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| About the Books |
I'd wondered for quite a while how I could use my years of working as a library assistant in a story. The Covid Lockdown brought fruition to that vague idea in the form of a cosy mystery - a lighthearted, short read, murder mystery who-dun-it.
I remembered an elderly lady who came into the library every day to cut the food coupons out of the daily paper. (I think she thought we didn't notice. Of course we did, but turned a blind eye.) I then thought, what if this lady was to be murdered... and what if my heroine protagonist, a mere naive teenage library assistant, was to have an uncle/guardian who was a detective chief inspector, who had a new young and handsome bagman as a detective sergeant? Straight away there were my lead characters and an initial plot to head a potential series set during the 1970s.
Some of the library scenes in the series are semi-autobiographical - working at South Chingford Library (a north-east suburb of London) for over twelve years has left me with quite a few anecdotes.
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| South Chingford Library © Alison Morton |
I decided to use Chingford as it really is (was!), using real places, such as the library in Hall Lane (alas, no longer a library but offices) recognisable landmarks, such as the cinema Chingford used to have, and existing street names. Only the roads where I set a murder are invented, although anyone who knows Chingford can work them out. The Old Church and Chingford Mount are frequently mentioned, the bus terminus at Albert Crescent, the local pubs, Woolworths and Boots the chemist all get a mention or two. Epping Forest is featured, Station Road, The Ridgeway...
What I didn't want, was for every mystery to be set in the one location. All those murders in Oxford, Newcastle, Midsomer... so I made the decision to alternate. One mystery in Chingford, the next in North Devon where I now live, then back to Chingford, then back to Devon. I may alter this sequence slightly with other locations - which I'll keep under my hat for now. (I have a cruise in mind...)
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| our hay meadow |
The fourth Jan Christopher Mystery (A Meadow Murder) features our top field (our hay meadow) on the front cover. I had the idea for that plot a few summers ago when we were cutting and bringing in the hay.
Beyond this, however, I guess it's mostly up to the reader to decide which bits of the stories are biography, which are total fiction! As a clue, I can guarantee that I have never been mixed up in a murder, nor do I know much about police procedure, apart from what I glean on the telly or from novels.
Does that surprise you? How can I write murder mysteries without knowing much about police procedures?
My answer to that is: I wrote about post-Roman Britain and then the 11th century. Following that came my nautical pirate-based series... and I don't know any post-Romans, Anglo-Saxons or Normans nor any 18th century pirates. Beyond a small dinghy, I've never been on a sailing ship either.
It's what they call imagination. And I have quite a bit of that.
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| Read An Excerpt or Two |
(Chapter 6)
A Tragic Discovery
Chingford 1971
We were laughing as we strolled, arm in arm, back along Appletree Road to where we had left the car. I’d known Laurie for no more than twenty-four hours, but he was so easy-going, I felt like we’d been best friends forever. A woman came past us pushing a pram that had a squeaky front wheel, whee, whee, whee, it went.
I thought it rather late to be out with a baby. She must have read my thoughts, or correctly interpreted my disapproving expression, for she gave a half-hearted smile and explained.
“I’m out of S.M.A. M’other half is at work. I’m poppin’ round to the corner shop. Couldn’t leave ‘er, on ‘er own, could I?”
The woman looked tired, harassed, her face was red, her hair, beneath her scarf, untidy. Had I been on my own, I would have offered to go to the shop for her, except I would never have been out on my own at gone eleven at night.
There was a slight obnoxious whiff coming from the pram, but as the baby was asleep, its mother obviously didn’t want to wake her to change a dirty nappy.
“S.M.A.?” Laurie asked as we walked on.
“Powdered milk for babies,” I explained. “You didn’t know that?”
He laughed. “I’m a detective, not a midwife.”
I had my arm through his, and snuggled closer as we walked. Laurie whistled a few bars of the theme tune from the film; I joined in, humming. Kelly's Heroes had been a good film, funny in places, especially when a Sherman tank had come out from a railway tunnel blaring music, and an outdoor privy had been blown up.
A man walked past us with his Labrador dog, taking a last walk before bed, I guessed. I waited until he had gone on a good way, then giggled.
“Woof! Woof! That’s my other dog impersonation!” A quote from Sutherland’s mad-as-a-hatter character, Oddball.
No one else was around. I could hear water, an ornamental fountain in the front garden of number forty-four.
Laurie had laughed at my mimicry from the film. He stopped in the shadows between two of the streetlights and pulled me towards him. “The moonlight glinting on your hair,” he whispered, “is quite lovely.”
He caught my wrist, swapped to lightly holding my hand and then kissed me, a butterfly touch on my lips.
I was taken aback. I’d only known him a short while. This was a bit forward, wasn’t it? I must have made some sound, for he pulled back, went red and apologised.
“Goodness, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I...”
“No,” I said, “no, it’s all right, it was nice.” I was about to say, ‘Please, do it again,’ but said instead, “Look... look...” I took a few steps away from him, pointing to a mid-terrace house on the other side of the road with its front door wide open, light spilling out from the hallway beyond.
“That’s Mrs Norris’s house,” I said, my voice starting to tremble. “Betty Norris, an elderly lady. She comes into the library every evening. Why is her door wide open at this time of night?”
Laurie frowned. We crossed the road and opening the front garden gate, walked up the overgrown garden path, my hand in his as I followed close behind.
“Norris, you say?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at me.
I nodded.
“Mrs Norris?” he called as he stepped over the threshold. “Are you in? Are you all right?”
“Betty?” I also called out. “It’s me, Jan, from the library. Do you need any help?”
(chapter 5)
Oh Deer!
Devon 1972
this scene (without the deer) is almost like our woods on our farm - and yes, I did climb the waterfall!
It was glorious being together, Laurie and I, ambling hand-in-hand along the path with nothing to worry about, the cares of the world resting on someone else’s shoulders for a while. The chum, chum, chum, sound of the tractor up on the hillside behind us, the birds trilling and the bees buzzing. Ewes nearby were calling to their almost-grown lambs. There was a yappy dog barking somewhere over to the left, probably from the cottage in the next lane along, glimpsed through the hedgerows from ‘our’ lane. In the distance, a cow was lowing. Absolute heaven!
The stream was running merrily along several feet below the path, then suddenly it disappeared, plunging over rocks to cascade down about eight feet into a large pool. I laughed and slithered down a low part of the bank. I couldn’t resist the temptation: off came my shoes and socks, I rolled up my jeans as best I could, set down my shoulder bag and, skirting round the edge of the rippling pool, started to climb up the waterfall, to the side of the ribbon of white, frothing water.
“Mind! Those rocks are slippy!” Laurie warned, watching from the bank.
“I’ve never climbed a waterfall before,” I called back. “This is wonderful!”
He laughed. “Well, it’s not exactly Niagara Falls, is it?”
Triumphant, I stood at the top, grasping an overhanging branch to steady myself. The white-spumed, gushing waterfall looked a long way down from up here and somehow, I had to descend it again – the banks to either side were too steep to climb up, and anyway, were overgrown with ferns, nettles and brambles. Going down the waterfall itself, backwards and feeling for footholds with my toes, would not be quite as easy as the going up had been – as I soon discovered. I got a little wet, but Laurie gallantly rolled up his trousers and stood, shoe and sock-less, ankle-deep in the pool to steady me down the last few feet. (He claimed that his assistance had nothing whatsoever to do with his hands firmly placed on my hips, either side of my bottom.)
We dried our feet with our socks, then put our shoes back on. The socks were damp, but without them, even though we were not far from home, we would both have quickly got blisters.
We walked on. Laurie stopped to inspect a section of broken fence. “Deer have brought it down, I expect,” he said wiggling a loose fence post. I wandered on to what looked to me like a huge mass of rhododendron bushes. I later discovered that’s exactly what they were: years and years ago, well before the Great War, there had been a small shepherd’s cottage in this part of the woods, and the bushes had been planted in the back garden.
Laurie pointed out another, larger badgers’ sett, which looked very much in use.
Rounding the mass of rhododendron bushes, I caught my breath and realising that I was alone, shouted in alarm. “Laurie! Come quick! Laurie, oh the poor thing!”
A deer was caught fast in the wire fence. I started to run, but Laurie seized my arm and, in a lowered voice, urged me to keep still. Initial instinct made me want to shake him off, the trapped animal urgently needed help, but he was right, and sense kicked in.
“We need to go calmly and quietly,” Laurie explained, “else we’ll frighten her more than she already is.”
About Me
First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, I became a USA Today Bestseller with my historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. My Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and I write a nautical adventure/supernatural series, The Sea Witch Voyages. SI have also branched out into the quick read novella, 'Cosy Mystery' genre with my Jan Christopher Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating my often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant. The fifth in the series, A Memory Of Murder, is available mid-May 2024.
My non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler. I am currently writing about the ghosts of North Devon for Amberley Press, and another, Jamaica Gold for my Sea Witch Voyages.
I live with my family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon with our dogs and cats, while on the farm there are showjumper horses, fat Exmoor ponies, an elderly Welsh pony, geese, ducks and hens.
And several resident ghosts.
Website: https://helenhollick.net
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books written by Helen Hollick
Website: https://helenhollick.net/
Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick
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| Coffee Pot Book Club Bronze Award2022 |
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Historical Stories of Exile by 13 popular authors Cryssa Bazos, Anna Belfrage, Elizabeth Chadwick, Cathie Dunn, J.G. Harlond, Helen Hollick, Loretta Livingstone, Amy Maroney Alison Morton, Charlene Newcomb, Elizabeth St.John, Marian L Thorpe, Annie Whitehead. With an introduction by Deborah Swift |
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| Amazon: FREE ebook! |
NON-FICTION
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Helen