Book Title: The Midnight of Eights
Series: The Island of Angels (This is book 2 of 2. The first book is called The Mark of the Salamander. Book 2 is written as a stand-alone, or can be read after reading book 1.)
Author: Justin Newland
Publication Date: 28th October 2024
Publisher: The Book Guild
Page Length: 288
Genre: Historical Fiction
1580.
Nelan Michaels docks at Plymouth after sailing around the world aboard the Golden Hind. He seeks only to master his mystical powers – the mark of the salamander, that mysterious spirit of fire – and reunite with his beloved Eleanor.
After delivering a message to Francis Walsingham, he’s recruited into the service of the Queen’s spymaster, where his astral abilities help him to predict and thwart future plots against the realm.
But in 1588, the Spanish Armada threatens England’s shores.
So how could the fledgling navy of a small, misty isle on the edge of mainland Europe repulse the greatest fleet in the world?
Was the Queen right when she claimed it was divine intervention, saying, ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered!’?
Or was it an entirely different intervention – the extraordinary conjunction of coincidences that Nelan’s astral powers brought to bear on that fateful Midnight of Eights?
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| read an extract |
Extract from the beginning of Chapter 3:
Madima’s Vision
23rd April 1581
He walked through a carpet of bluebells on the slopes of Shooters Hill, just west of Greenwich, with a grand view over the bends in the river Thames. The chapel bells called him to compulsory worship. After intoning the Lord’s Prayer, when the service ended, he trudged across common land on the edge of a village. He grimaced as the acrid smell of death stung his nostrils. There it was, a corpse hanging from a gibbet. The dead man’s flesh had shrunk to his bones. His shoeless feet dangled in the air, his head tilted to one side, and his swollen, dried-up tongue bulged out of his mouth.
To one side of the meadow, a handful of yeomen practised their archery skills. They set their arrows in their yew bows and unleashed them into the air in high, graceful crescents. They stopped shooting when they saw him.
“What brings ya here, lad?” one of them with a scraggly beard asked.
“Lost my beloved. She has these green eyes and curly, auburn hair. A tad taller than me, she goes by the name of Eleanor and travels with a companion, Alexander.”
“Not seen no folks like that,” the man replied.
The one with a pock-marked face must have picked up his slight Flemish twang, because he asked, “You one a’ them foreigners? You a Gyptian?”
“I was born in Picardy in Northern France. What’s a Gyptian?”
“They call ’emselves Children of Ancient Egypt. We call ’em E-gyptians. That’s where they hark from; E-gypt. Some call ‘em Gypsies. Watch out though, there’s a bunch of ’em, three score or more, up there on Shooters Hill.”
“What of it?”
“Them Gyptians be rascals ’n thieves. They settle in a place, then shuffle on here and wander on there. Folks say they worship the Devil ’imself. An’ they read ya palm ’n tell ya fortune. It smells of witchcraft, lad. They’ll slit ya throat as soon as give you a bye your leave.”
“They’re that bad?”
“Yeah, listen to me,” he said, pointing to the hanged man. “That fella over there on Gibbet Field, he was hung just for talkin’ to ’em. It’s agin’ the law a’ Queen Bess herself.”
While the archers collected their arrows, Nelan collected his thoughts. Like Wandering Jews, these Gyptians moved from place to place, and so might have encountered his Eleanor. He loitered in the woods until the archers left, then strode up to the summit of Shooters Hill, where he was greeted by a hound with wild eyes and a bark as sharp as Excalibur.
As he tousled the dog’s mane, a man asked, “What you want with us?” A woman stood next to him.
“You with the Gyptians?” Nelan replied, trying to keep his nerve.
“Who’s askin’?” the man said.
“I’m Nelan.”
“Me is Jasper,” came the reply. His voice was guttural but mellow at the same time. The man’s forehead resembled a ploughed field, each furrow etched from life’s profound experiences. “And this be me’ sis’, Kazia.”
“Greetings, Nelan. What brings you to our camp?” she said, in a voice as soft as a rose petal. Kazia had black hair, an olive complexion, high cheekbones and dark eyes that watched with passion. She was utterly stunning. Nelan puffed out his cheeks and glanced away so as not to offend her by staring.
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Author Bio:
JUSTIN NEWLAND’s novels represent an innovative blend of genres from historical adventure to supernatural thriller and magical realism.
Undeterred by the award of a Maths Doctorate, he conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (ISBN 9781789014860, Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.
His second book, The Old Dragon’s Head (ISBN 9781789015829, Matador, 2018), and is set in Ming Dynasty China in the shadows of the Great Wall.
Set during the Great Enlightenment, The Coronation (ISBN 9781838591885, Matador, 2019) speculates on the genesis of the most important event in the modern world – the Industrial Revolution.
The Abdication (ISBN 9781800463950, Matador, 2021) is a mystery thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith.
The Mark of the Salamander (ISBN 9781915853271, Book Guild, 2023), is the first in a two-book series, The Island of Angels. Set in the Elizabethan era, it tells the epic tale of England’s coming of age.
The latest is The Midnight of Eights (ISBN 9781835740 330, Book Guild, 2024), the second in The Island of Angels series, which charts the uncanny coincidences of time and tide that culminated in the repulse of the Spanish Armada.
His work in progress is The Spirit of the Times which explores the events of the 14th Century featuring an unlikely cast of the Silk Road, Genghis Khan, the Black Plague, and a nursery rhyme that begins ‘Ring a-ring a-roses’.
Author, speaker and broadcaster, Justin gives talks to historical associations and libraries, appears on LitFest panels, and enjoys giving radio interviews. He lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.
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