Tag: tudors

In Search of Fear…..with Jennifer Wilson

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

“Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI Part One

So very happy to welcome Jennifer Wilson to my blog during the festive season! As you may know Jennifer loves writing about spooks as much as I do, only hers are a tad more regal than mine. Author of the Kindred Spirits series, Jennifer has raised the dead monarchy so many times she deserves a spot on Most Haunted. I think her stories are awesome so I’m very excited to have her here to talk about fear…..

Hi Anne-Marie, thanks for inviting me to your blog today. It’s fair to say I’m a naturally jumpy and easily-frightened individual, so I’m confident that of all your guests, my responses are at the coward’s end of the fear scale…

What movie/book scared you as a child?

I have really vivid memories of reading a book from the ‘upstairs’ library, for the upper juniors in primary school, which really freaked me out. I can see the cover, with two boys running, and I’m sure it was called ‘The Runaways’ or something similar. In one scene, a wall fell over, almost crushing either one or both of them. That image stuck with me for a long, long time, and gave me nightmares about being crushed. Horrific. I should have stayed in the ‘downstairs’ library, where I belonged, but I’d finished all the books it had to offer!

What was your biggest fear as a child?

Well, apart from walls… I’ve always had the most random fear of dust-bin lorries. That, and dinosaurs. Both stem from films. I watched the Turtles live-action film, where Shredder is, well, shredded, in a dust-bin lorry, and from that day, I’ve hated them. We used to have to walk up a really narrow wynd to get up to college, and on dust-bin day, I’d be petrified of accidentally slipping into the back of it. As for dinosaurs, that’s the fault of Jurassic Park. I had this terrible fear that if I opened my curtains at night, I’d see the eye of a t-rex, just staring back at me…

Do you like scary movies? Which one is your favourite?

As you can probably guess from the above, no, I do not like scary movies… I’m not really a film person anyway, but the most I can tolerate is a bit of a ‘jump scare’ which at least is over quickly!

I am usually scared the most by ghosts when I’m reading a book. Have you ever had a paranormal experience in real life?

Yes, and the most recent was in Greyfriars Kirkyard, in Edinburgh. As it’s the setting for part of my own book, Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile, and it was a lovely, quiet morning (I was early for an exhibition), I decided to pop in and get some nice photos of the blossom. There was one guy sitting having a coffee on a bench as I walked in, but that was it. Around the front of the church there was a lovely view down the graveyard of blossom, which I snapped, but as I went to put my phone away, I felt somebody touch my handbag. I panicked slightly, and put my own hand down to the zipper / strap, whilst turning to my left to confront them. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a tall gentleman in a dark suit and a white shirt, with dark hair. Later, I thought he had also been wearing a hat, but I cannot swear to that, and may have added it in my imagination afterwards. But the man himself was clear as day. Heart racing now, I turned fully around, only… Nothing. Nobody anywhere near me. Anyone who knows the site will know that if you’re in the middle of the paving in front of the church itself, there’s not enough time to get somewhere hide in the second it took me to turn around (Usain Bolt himself wouldn’t make it). The only other thing I felt was the strangest sensation of cold.

Greyfriars Kirkyard

I got out of there quicker than I’ve ever done anything in my life! Once out the gates, I did what every self-respecting thirty-something who has had a scare would do, and called my mum. She laughed initially when I told her, but then admitted she believed me, because she could hear the genuine fear in my voice. I was very glad to get away into the safety of the museum after that…

Has a book ever really scared you?

Other than the one I talked about above, not really, but that’s partly down to the fact that I can usually sense when something is about to get too much for me, and I skim / skip appropriately. It’s the same technique I use with overly-graphic crime novels!

Can you share with us an example of fear in one of your own novels?

Since the Kindred Spirits series follows the adventures of the ghostly communities inhabiting some of Britain’s most famous landmarks, fear definitely plays a part in my novels. For the most part, this is the ghosts instilling fear in the tourists who visit their homes, such as George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, rising from a barrel of malmsey in the Tower of London, or Katherine Howard haunting ‘her’ corridor at Hampton Court Palace. In one of the closes off Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, some students ready to play a trick on those taking part in one of the city’s famous ‘ghost tours’, the students themselves become the victims, terrified as Mary Queen of Scots enjoys herself in the occasional haunting. In these situations though, I think it’s fair to say that the living are almost-willing participants in the game. After all, you wouldn’t go on a ghost tour along a famously haunted street, at night, with somebody dressed as a ghoul, if you weren’t at least partially expecting to be scared witless, would you? So can the ghosts really be blamed, when they’re practically giving the tourists what they’re expecting?

In some instances though, I’ve wanted to explore things a little ‘bigger’ than just ghosts jumping out at unsuspecting visitors. I’ve talked about ghostly characters finding their ‘white light’ and moving on from their haunting, but this is by choice – if the white light appears, then a ghost can choose to move on, or stay. But I also wanted to give the ghosts something to genuinely fear, otherwise, they seemed a bit too invincible. I had this idea that if a ghost was injured too many times, they would gradually fade away to nothing. That would stop characters fighting each other – there had to be a consequence of their actions.

In Kindred Spirits: York, I pushed things a little further, and actually introduced a ‘bad guy’ into things, rather than just an unpopular character. Here, the ghosts didn’t quite know what was going on, which, for characters who can slip through walls and overhear almost any conversation without being observed, was something unknown, and for a lot of people, isn’t that one of the most frightening things?

In real life what is your biggest fear? Do you use that when you write?

If you take away dust-bin lorries and dinosaurs, then being very serious for a moment, I’m always scared of letting people down, or disappointing them. Perhaps this isn’t quite as relevant in the Kindred Spirits series, but in The Raided Heart, Meg has a strong sense of wanting to do the right thing, and not let her family down, and in the WIP I’m currently working on, loyalty and needing to work together are strong motivations for the key characters, as they try to do their best in difficult situations.

Thank you so much for joining my study of fear Jennifer. I too fell foul of Jurassic Park, had several T Rex nightmares after seeing that at the cinema! And your Greyfriars experience deserves a blog post of its own! How creepy was that? Feel free to stop by with ghost stories again please!

All of Jennifer’s books are currently in the big DarkStroke Halloween sale over on Amazon, you can get all titles for 99p/99c this weekend! Go go go!

About Jennifer C. Wilson

Jennifer C. Wilson stalks dead people (usually monarchs, mostly Mary Queen of Scots and Richard III). Inspired by childhood visits to as many castles and historical sites her parents could find, and losing herself in their stories (not to mention quite often the castles themselves!), at least now her daydreams make it onto the page.

After returning to the north-east of England for work, she joined a creative writing class, and has been filling notebooks ever since. Jennifer won North Tyneside Libraries’ Story Tyne short story competition in 2014, and in 2015, her debut novel, Kindred Spirits: Tower of London was published by Crooked Cat Books. The full series was re-released by Darkstroke in January 2020.

Jennifer is a founder and host of the award-winning North Tyneside Writers’ Circle, and has been running writing workshops in North Tyneside since 2015. She also publishes historical fiction novels with Ocelot Press. She lives in Whitley Bay, and is very proud of her two-inch view of the North Sea.

You can connect with Jennifer online:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifercwilsonwriter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/inkjunkie1984

Blog: https://jennifercwilsonwriter.wordpress.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifercwilsonwriter/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jennifer-C-Wilson/e/B018UBP1ZO/

Behind the Book – The Last Plantagenet

Published on by Anne-Marie OrmsbyLeave a comment

TLP-FinalCover(1)

For my final author interview of the year, I had a chat with Jennifer Wilson, author of the Kindred Spirits series; paranormal fiction set in the Royal Court of the 1400’s – so clearly my love of all things spooky mean I had to have a chat with the lady herself!

Her most recent book is slightly different but again returns to the era of Richard III. Ive always been fascinated by this period of history and Jennifer really knows her stuff so this interview has been a real pleasure.

Tell us the basic premise of your novel?

The Last Plantagenet? is a timeslip historical romance, following history-lover Kate as she gets transported back in time from 2011 to the travelling court of Richard III in 1485. That would be difficult enough to acclimatise to, but then she also catches the eye of the King of England himself – how will she cope?

 

As the book is historical fiction – did you have to do a lot of research for accuracy?

I was really keen that even though it’s a bit of a fantasy, with the timeslip element, that the facts were still correct. So yes, I did do my research, in particular to make sure that the court was in the right place at the right time, and that people who shouldn’t have been there weren’t there. I had a really good book which went into a lot of detail about the last 100 days of Richard’s reign, and that was a great resource, to track each day’s activity. Happily, having one of the main characters as an entirely fictional individual, there was a little leeway in where I could go with her.

As it was also my first go at self-publishing, I was keen that it was in good shape, and didn’t accidentally detract from my Kindred Spirits series, so I checked everything at least twice!

 

Where do you go to get inspiration for your locations and storylines?

For TLP, it was all desk-based, although I have been to the site of Nottingham Castle, where the book is mostly set. Most of the time, I do need to go somewhere to really write how I want to about it. For example, for the third Kindred Spirits novel, I had written a whole scene about Anne of Cleves’ tomb, only to discover that you couldn’t physically see what I had my characters seeing from a particular spot, and I had to rewrite the whole thing.

I found especially with places like Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London, they do have a very specific atmosphere, and I like to capture that. Plus, I love visiting historical sites anyway, so it’s not that much of a hardship.

 

Do you have a favourite author?

I’m always torn here between three, but I think Philippa Gregory is still the author I look forward to a new release from. It was reading The Other Boleyn Girl on the insistence of a colleague that introduced me to the Tudor world, and inspired me to get back into writing historical fiction again, so I feel I owe that book a lot.

I also love the writing of Elizabeth Chadwick and Anne O’Brien, who both manage to capture strong central female characters, without falling into that trap of having their heroines too modern in their attitudes and thoughts.

 

What/who inspires you most as a writer?

For me, it’s places. There’s nothing better for me than visiting historical sites or buildings, and just mooching about, getting a feel for the place, and who might have spent time there in the past. That’s where my inspiration comes from. I’ve been wanting to set a story in an abbey (other than Westminster!) for years, but couldn’t get a good enough grasp on it until this summer, wandering around Glenluce Abbey, when the whole thing magically fell into place. By the end of the day, I had the whole synopsis, ready to go.

 

Which historical figures would you most like to sit down to dinner with?

Well, I hate to be obvious, but I would, of course, enjoy sitting down and sharing a cup of wine with Richard III. He was king for such a short time, but involved in so many events and situations important to British history. Also, who wouldn’t want to hear his side of the story regarding the Princes in the Tower? Although, I think I would leave that until the end of the meal, in case he refused to speak to me again after that…

 

What are you working on next?

I’m thrilled to bits that the third Kindred Spirits novel, set in Westminster Abbey, will be released by Crooked Cat in summer 2018, so I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the editing process for that in the new year. I find self-editing so hard, but love receiving critique and feedback from others, so that’s part of the publishing process I really enjoy.

As for new writing, I have a couple of ideas for other timeslip, like the abbey tale I mentioned above, and one with a more local flavour, inspired by a reservoir we used to visit when I was little.

JenniferCWilson-HolyroodPalace

 

About Jennifer

Jennifer is a marine biologist by training, who spent much of her childhood stalking Mary, Queen of Scots (initially accidentally, but then with intention). She completed her BSc and MSc at the University of Hull, and has worked as a marine environmental consulting since graduating. Enrolling on an adult education workshop on her return to the north-east reignited Jennifer’s pastime of creative writing, and she has been filling notebooks ever since. In 2014, Jennifer won the Story Tyne short story competition, and also continues to develop her poetic voice, reading at a number of events, and with several pieces available online. She is also part of The Next Page, running workshops and other literary events in North Tyneside, including the prize-winning North Tyneside Writers’ Circle.

Jennifer’s debut novel, Kindred Spirits: Tower of London, was released by Crooked Cat Books in October 2015, with Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile following in June 2017. She can be found online at her website, on Twitter and Facebook, as well as at The Next Page’s website. Her timeslip historical romance, The Last Plantagenet? Is available for download from Amazon.