Showing posts with label Rebecca F. John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca F. John. Show all posts

Tuesday, 20 September 2022

'The Shadow Order' Blog Tour

An Adventure Book Blog Tour featuring Rebecca F. John.  

Hosted by Erin the Literary Cat

 

 

 

           

© Image Copyright

Hello, and welcome to my weekday Book Review slot featuring Adventures in Middle-Grade Fiction! 

This week we have something very special for you, an exclusive chat with Rebecca F. John, the author of The Shadow Order.

You may recall that Erin reviewed this excellent adventure a few weeks ago, and a link to the review can be FOUND HERE. So let's head on over to Upper Much-Mousing and see what Erin's up to today . . . . 

"Mrs H, I've packed my case, and remembered the suncream and swimsuit. It's all ready for you to pop in the taxi." Erin said as she entered the Manor's drawing room, leapt nimbly onto her favourite sofa, and started checking off items on a list of tasks she had prepared. "Do you think I'll be signing autographs? Maybe I should get you another pen to do the signing for me?"

"Are you going somewhere, dear?" Mrs H looked up from her crossword puzzle and placed the knitting she'd done neatly on her lap. "I don't recall there being any trips planned."

"Yes, on tour. The one we were invited on by Karen at Firefly Press." Erin prodded at the corner of the telegram she currently sat on. "Surely you recall? I know you'd had a sherry that evening, but you said it was quite a red letter day. Though I must admit the telegram is only in black ink, so maybe you got it wrong?"

"Oh, that tour. No, dear, you are quite right. But equally wrong." Mrs H smiled, leaned over, and gently pulled the now-warm and curved telegram from under Erin.

"I'm right and wrong, Mrs H?" Erin glanced over at the decanter just in case Mrs H had imbibed a pre-lunch sherry and forgotten to put the stopper back in.

"Yes, dear. We, or rather you and the blog, are going on tour. Well, actually, the blog is a stop on tour for other readers. So yes, there is a tour. But alas, no, you are not actually going anywhere or signing anything. Rather people, your fans and new visitors are coming to meet Rebecca F. John."

"Hmmm, shouldn't we be getting the tea, sandwiches and scones ready? And maybe do a spot of dusting? I know I, for one, could do with a good dust-off and bath!"

"No, dear, they will be virtual visitors. And before you ask, Rebecca couldn't come here, at least not today. But she kindly sent a copy of the book, AND a unique insight into the question you asked about how she created the characters, and more importantly, how they develop."

"That was really kind, and I can't wait to read the answer. Is it set up on the laptop, Mrs H?"

"It is, dear. I did it whilst you were packing. I think the answer will surprise some of our readers. Though bloggers with companions will, I am sure, understand. Others, who are maybe thinking of branching into writing, will be inspired and educated."

"Just one thing, Mrs H."

"Yes?"

"Does this mean there's no real trips out or tours?" 

"No, dear. No trips or tours."

"So, no real scones with double whipped cream and catnip sprinkles either?"

"No scones. At least, not real scones. But virtual scones topped with virtual cream and lashings of virtual nip ale, we have aplenty."

"Well, I suppose virtual is the new reality," Erin said, contemplating if she needed to have a virtual bath and nap before a virtual tour. "Will we be doing a giveaway this week?"

"Yes, dear. One lucky reader who leaves a comment will have their name plucked from a hat—"

"A virtual hat or a real hat, Mrs H?" Erin interrupted.

"There will be no hat, just folded strips of real paper with names on. So, as I was saying, one lucky commenter will receive a copy of the Shadow Order. And before you ask, it will be a real book, not a virtual copy. Comments will close next Tuesday, 27th September 2022."

Erin nodded sagely and was on the brink of asking another question but was stopped by a reproving look from Mrs H. "I think, dear, we best get on with the tour and introduce our guest."

"Right you are, Mrs H." Erin cleared her throat and, after a nonchalant straightening of the whiskers, addressed the laptop. "Dear readers, please give a warm Upper Much-Mousing welcome to our first guest, Rebecca F. John, author of the brilliant Middle-Grade book, The Shadow Order. Rebecca has kindly written the following article just for us about how she gets to know her characters."

"Hello, Erin, and thank you for the question you sent me. My starting point for developing the characters in The Shadow Order was perhaps slightly unusual. Here is it…

 Betsy – poodle x schnauzer, black and white, born 2015

 Teddy – schnauzer, black, born 2016

 Effie – cocker spaniel, blue roan, 2011 – 2021

 Three dogs. My dogs really were the inspiration for the characters of Elizabeth' Betsy' Blue, Theodore 'Teddy' James, and Euphemia' Effie' Hart – three best friends who embark on a big adventure in The Shadow Order. I've mentioned my reasons for basing these characters on my dogs a few times, but it is perhaps also worth mentioning that echoing the dogs' names, personality traits, and even, to some extent, their physical appearance (Betsy, for example, is the smallest of the three: a wiry, energetic girl who struggles to keep still) was just the beginning of building these characters.

 I'm sure there are as many different ways to develop convincing characters as there are writers. I've heard some mention making lists of character traits or plotting their characters' family histories. I've heard others say they sketch their characters, or compile playlists for them, or even talk to them. For my part, I usually start out with a strong visual idea of each character. Some writers, I know, aren't particularly interested in what their characters look like. That idea feels completely alien to me! I certainly know a lot about my characters' physicality before I start to write them: their eye colour, the way they walk, the manner in which they use their hands when they speak, what their voice sounds like. All those details come to me before I understand why.

 It is only as I start to move them around on the page that I come to learn why I would want to know their stories. A writer friend once told me that if I was stuck with a scene, I should move somebody, even if it's just across the kitchen to make a sandwich. And I think that's a great trick to keep in mind. A lot of writing comes, for me, from the act of doing it, of moving my fingers over the keys, of finding out where that movement will carry my characters.

 So what did I learn about Betsy, Teddy, and Effie as I moved them around the world I had built for them? Honestly, almost everything. As I wrote Betsy onto a street corner, waiting for her friend Teddy to arrive, I learnt that she cannot stay still for a moment. That she fizzes with energy. And as she fizzed around Copperwell, so I learnt that Betsy cannot relax because she has never known the security of a home, that she has bounced from temporary situation to temporary situation, making do, just as she does as a worker at Saltsburg's Laundry at the start of the novel. I might never have known that about her, had I not put her on the page and allowed her to reveal herself to me.

 I had similar experiences with the other main characters. Teddy's low-shouldered lope betrays his lack of confidence in himself. I found the cause of that lack of confidence in his feelings of grief following the loss of his father. Without a role model, Teddy feels he doesn't quite know how to go about the business of growing into a man.

 And with these kinds of discoveries came the characters' interests. Effie is the most sensible and staid of the three characters. She has grown up in a wealthy household and feels herself restricted by what is considered respectable dress, the presence of servants in her home, her parents' important jobs. So it seemed only natural that Effie would challenge that feeling by becoming a jazz musician.

 In this way, the characters grew alongside and because of their existence in their physical world. It seems to me as good a way as any to find our characters and the stories they inhabit. Move your fingers, move your characters, move through the story and see what you discover along the way. It's exciting! It's an adventure! To my mind, it's a lot of fun!"

"Wow, thank you, Rebecca, that was really interesting, and I have to say far more complex than I thought. We loved that your three canine companions started the ball rolling and helped shape the characters. They thus have a special place in the book. Mrs H and I hope there is a sequel to this soon. But till then, we wish you and The Shadow Order a very successful launch. It certainly is a story we recommend!"

                                                 ***

That, sadly is all we have time for this week. Thank you to fellow bloggers and readers for being with us today. I hope you enjoyed this stop on The Shadow Order Book Blog Tour. And please, do leave your comments below.

As is tradition, we leave you with a selfie of me stalking (in a virtual fashion) a long tail zebra mouse that Mrs H says now lives under the sofa!

© Erin the cat Princess.

 

Till Laters!

ERin

 

 © All images and text are copyright, and nothing may be used, copied, shared in part of whole without the express permission of the copyright holders in advance.

 

 

Monday, 25 July 2022

THE SHADOW ORDER

 by Rebecca F. John;  

An Adventure Book Review by Erin the Literary Cat ©

 




Hello, and welcome to my weekend Read & Review featuring Adventures in Middle-Grade Fiction! 

Before we get stuck in to this rather intriguing book, I just need to point out our whimsical news update on the antics going on in our village of Upper Much-Mousing (UMM) can be found after the book review. I hope you'll enjoy it.

OK, lets get the show on the road with my review of a wonderful new adventure called 'THE SHADOW ORDER'.

 




BOOK TITLE & AUTHOR: Rebecca F. John

 

Cover art by: Not listed

 

Published by: FIREFLY PRESS


Publication date:  15 September 2022 


Paperback ISBN:  978 191 310 2951

 

Cover price for Paperback £7.99. 

Kindle available: Yes.

 

Pages:  288.

 

Age range: Middle Grade (9-12 AND upwards)


Any interesting creatures? Yes, mantises, deer and two huge and fearsome wolves!


 

 

SPOILER ALERT


Some as to plot direction and characters. 

 

 

Thank you to... 

 

We are exceedingly grateful to Karen & Firefly Press, & Net Galley for the privilege of getting to Read & Review this book before publication. 

 

As ever, our views are our own, and we only share reviews of books we like and feel our readers deserve to know about and that we hope they will enjoy. 

 

 

The plot



The story opens in the city of Copperwell, in the Britannic Isles. Powered by manual labour, horses, steam and clockwork, it is a world that could be our own one hundred and fifty years ago. 

 

Here we find three longtime friends who share mischief and adventure. Effie Hart, Betsy Blue and Teddy James were drawn together by one incident years earlier. Suffice it to say, that made them strong. Effie is a skilled double bass player from a wealthy family. While her parents wish her to go to Royal Academy, she would much rather continue to play jazz in backstreet venues as part of a lauded masked quartet. Teddy works offloading the barges of goods destined for the city folk of Copperwell but longs to be a great explorer and seek out the Aur, a fabled golden horse. Betsy works and lives over a laundry. Without her parents, she longs to learn more about her past and what the future holds.

 

The city of Copperwell sits surrounded by a canal, over which nobody is allowed to pass. The city has been under a curfew for the past year. It is called the 'Shadow Order'. Except for the feared mounted constabulary, nobody is allowed out during the day. It is an offence punishable by a life sentence in a dark, dank gaol. Or worse. 

 

Why? It is all because the shadows of the residents started to do their own thing. No longer did they just mirror the individual. They show what the individual feels like within at any given moment: big, brave, jolly, cowering. They seem to have a life of their own. This became known as 'The Shift'. It was forbidden to look upon these shadows for fear of what they may be and do. The restrictions placed on the populace were all for their own good, or so the Prime Minister and the Unified Government said. But a year passed, the order stayed in place, and the city folk no longer questioned the removal of their liberty and human rights. 

 

But other things were happening. It became mandatory to maintain musical weather pipes on buildings that drain the rain into the sewers in the streets. The pipes play notes as the elements blow across their lengths. Failure to keep them playing means a hefty fine that few can afford. 

 

On the anniversary of the Shadow Order, the three, led by Betsy, dare to sit on the castle-like roof of Copperwells observatory. From here, they will watch the sun rise for the first time in a year. Whilst there, something strange happens: mantises fall from the sky like petals. Brought on a peculiar wind from their native land far to the east, they soon wither and die in the cold Copperwell night. Betsy saves one; shortly after that, they hear a woman's voice. 

 

Old and poorly dressed, she stands in the daylight, and shouts. Her shadow is quite different, it looks strong and defiant, and is certainly differently clad. The constabulary, mounted on huge black shire horses, arrive and advance on the lady.  She claims that the government has lied to them, caused the shift in the shadows and is manipulating the people of Copperwell, keeping the truth and the money from the downtrodden people. She continues to shout and proclaims that she can prove it all. Catching the sight of the children on the roof but not giving them away, she bellows with all her might that they must "FIND THE ORRERY! FIND—" before she can continue, the now dismounted constabulary, bludgeon her to the ground and haul her away.  

 

Betsy's meagre room over the laundry has a small orrery that had been left by a prior lodger. They soon realise that there is an orrery within the observatory. It is a mechanical depiction of the sun with eight planets that revolve around it in their respective orbits. How it works, or it's part in the lies of the government, they do not know. But it becomes clear to Betsy that they need to break in to see and study it. But to study it, they need to steal it first.

 

The following week sees the arrival of unusual snowfalls and creatures best suited to arctic regions. Is this what the orrery is doing; is it changing the seasons and time itself? Determined to get to the bottom of things, they set out to take the orrery from under the noses of the constabulary.

 

From here on, it is fair to say that things take off in ways the three do not expect. The plot takes our three into highly treacherous waters, where they face the constabulary and risk the lives of loved ones. Friends will be made, and friends lost. Inner selves brought to the fore, and life-changing deeds done. 


  

So, what did we think?

 

Gosh, this was quite a ride. As rich in description as the best Christmas puddings are fruit, this is a sweet morsel that cannot be rushed yet demands to be read. The story is told in the third person omniscient. It has the definite air of a much bolder story style– Arthurian or Tolkein. It is a style that threw me till I got the gist, and then like a thick fur coat wrapped up and kept me literarily warm.

 

I have not read any of Rebecca's adult literature. Still, I can understand why she was, amongst other things, a Costa Award nominee. This is her first venture into middle-grade writing. It is, in equal measure, impressive, rich, characterful, foreboding and heartening. Copperwell is a place crafted so that it could easily be two hundred years ago or a parallel future. There are definite parallels to the actions of governments in our own world on the environment and the creatures and peoples they are supposed to serve and protect. 

 

The middle of a heatwave probably isn't the best time to start an intense and enveloping book. Initially, I really wasn't sure what I had here. By the end, however, I was sad to say goodbye to Copperwell and the assembled characters. I really do want another adventure to be born out of the ashes of this; there certainly is scope for it. As I said earlier, it has the feel of an epic in the making. The social, political and moral issues raised will undoubtedly provide great talking points for teachers and readers of all ages. 

 



So . . . . 



Crunch time. 


Top marks for a story that ably knits together so many fantastic ideas and characters. For me. it is undoubtedly richer and more significant than the cover may suggest. Worthy of a broad age range audience and even a television drama. A must-buy, and one I would have been pleased to have bought for myself. 




Want to buy a copy?

 

To get a copy, please do think of your local independent bookshop. There are plenty out there, and each is just waiting to serve up a treasure of literal magical resource, fun and adventure with a personal touch.

 


REBECCA F. JOHN's WEB page can be found HERE  or type this: https://www.rebeccafjohn.com


 

FIREFLY PRESS' web page can be found HERE.  or type this: https://nosycrow.com/

 

 

And now . . . 

 

THE UMM VILLAGE NEWS UPDATE

Following on from last week's news that the local flock of sheep had been having complimentary full trims and free blue and pale red rinses, curtesy of Mrs Gauze of 'Clips & Snips Hairdressing', it seems they have been attracting a lot of attention from passing foreign tourists. It all started when the flock, an even split of white, red, and blue were seen to laying down in their field in the form of the French flag. The French Ambassador was informed, and keen to repatriate this new enclave of patriots, he dispatched a fleet of Citreon 2CV and free passports to my village of Upper Much-Mousing.

However, by the time they all arrived the sheep had morphed into the flags of the Netherlands and then Luxemburg. Worryingly, come sunset, the sheep looked as though they were lining up for the Russian Federation flag. With pop-up embasies springing up like weeds all over the field, Mrs H was sure we'd need the UN Peacekeepers by dawn. There was even a call from the White House offering the beleagured farmer, Mr Clarksin, an aid package, unspecified military assistance, and advice about independence.

The message from the Britsh Farming Minister, Mrs Heard, (former Minister for Health, Education, Economic Recovery, Energy, and the Armed Forces) was delayed due to the delivery pigeon stopping on route to have a bath. The rather smudged message read: Sorry, tied up ........ ........ party bus....... PM will visit troops in morning.

Once the panic subsided, all eyes turned to the skies, then towards the hedges and finally scanned the flock. Would Navy Seals and the SAS be infiltrating the sheep? Would UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, soon be giving rousing speeches to a bemused gathering of sheep believing them to be undercover special forces? Of greater importance to the villagers, was whether Mrs Singh, proprietor of Singh's World Food Emporium, be able to keep up with their takeaway orders?

Answers to all these points, well, some, possibly none, will be following next week!

That's it for this review. So all that remains is for me to leave you with a picture of me giving the "I'm NOT reviewing another book until I get something extra for supper' look.


© Erin the Cat Princess








Till laters!

ERin