Blog Posts - Susan Leona Fisher, author of historical & contemporary romance

December 2018

11/30/2018

Thomas Spence, the poor man’s advocate
In my latest regency romance (to be published in January 2019), the hero has become an officer and a gentleman after humble beginnings as a child worker in a coal mine. A significant factor in his transformation occurs when he runs away from home and on the road meets one Thomas Spence, who persuades him he can become whoever he wants to be. The meeting is entirely fictitious, but Thomas Spence was real and I was fascinated by what I found when researching his life of poverty and pamphlets - oh, and coins! As long ago as 1775 he wrote a paper which he delivered to the Philosophical Society in Newcastle, his home city. It was entitled “The Real Rights of Man” (he is alleged to have used the phrase long before Thomas Paine) and spoke of common ownership of land. After his death in 1814, his followers set up the Society of Spencean Philanthropists, but their activities were more revolutionary that philanthropic and it quickly became a banned organisation in that period after 1815 when Lord Liverpool as PM and Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary steered through a number of repressive pieces of legislation.
The Philosophical Society is still open for business and well worth a visit, just along from Newcastle train station.

November 2018 - your views on Violet Douglas Pennant

11/10/2018

Thank you to readers who have taken the trouble to send me comments on “The rise and fall of Violet Douglas Pennant”, which I’m delighted to say has been well received by many.
Here are a selection:

The research is impeccable and the assessment of it is fair-minded.
I can’t put it down.
The subject matter is compelling but you have also helped with the pace in the way you have approached it all.
I found it totally absorbing, really enjoyed it, notwithstanding the feelings of outrage and frustration at what happened to Violet.
I loved how each chapter gives a sense of atmosphere and of the times, very nice domestic details which bring it to life. Not a dry old biography at all!
Impressed with the depth and detail of your research too.
I don’t usually go for historical novels but the story had enough suspense to keep me engaged and I enjoyed it. I guess it opened my eyes a bit because I’d never really taken any interest in that wealthy strata of society where everything was/is about who you know.
I had some difficulty in associating with Violet’s need to clear her name or understanding the drive with which she pursued that over such a long period. Didn’t you get frustrated when you were researching and writing that she wouldn’t let it go and put her energy into making a new life for herself?
It can’t have been an easy time in the first world war to be able, female and not allowed to do the job properly!
Her letter to Lloyd George was far too long, but I think that if these or similar events had happened today, she would have been able to employ a solicitor expert in employment law, who would have made mincemeat of Lord Weir!
Thank you for shedding so much light on what seems to have been a shambolic, chaotic and really not very nice period of history at the end of WW1. I thought the parallel with the Dreyfuss Case in France was so appropriate, and, in today’s world, there are also lessons which can and should be applied.

If you have any feedback on this or my fictional novels, there is now an email address specially for readers: SLFisher.Readers@btconnect.com
Would love to hear from you and will do my best to reply.
NB I will not use any reader email addresses so acquired for anything else, or pass them on.

September 2018 - a picture speaks 1,000 words

9/17/2018

My thanks to everyone who has responded so positively to the launch of “The rise and fall of Violet Douglas Pennant”, especially if you bought it. Now there’s a free PDF to accompany the book. Download “vdp_illustrated.pdf” to see over 100 people and 30 places mentioned in the book, set out chapter by chapter. Find it on the HOME page of this website, www.SLFisherAuthor.co.uk and click “Download File” (file size c8MB)

August 2018

8/6/2018

You know that feeling when you’ve set yourself a target and feel so great when you meet it? But what then? What’s going to get me out of bed in the morning? For the past 9 years, between writing a few novels, I’ve been eating, sleeping and breathing Violet Douglas Pennant, and so’s my husband. He’s in a state of relief while mine is more a sense of anti-climax. So, at last, here it is. Elsewhere I’ve referred to it as one centenary the RAF will not be celebrating. It is 100 years since, on August 28th 1918, the Honourable Violet Douglas Pennant was summarily dismissed from her post as Commandant of the Women’s Royal Air Force after 14 weeks in post. Instant dismissal was only used in cases of gross misconduct. What had she done? She demanded answers. Here is her story in “The rise and rall of Violet Douglas Pennant”, a political biography, written in the style of historical fiction. Available now in print on Amazon books or as e-book on Kindle. See link on home page.

June 2018

6/22/2018

Have recently returned from a walking holiday on Madeira, during which we got the chance to see round Reid’s Hotel, where Winston Churchill famously stayed. The distinctive pink walled building still stands out on the hill at the west end of Funchal’s esplanade, but as you might expect, is quite dwarfed by some of the modern hotel developments.

Writing-wise, after that refreshing break, I’ve returned to the last round of edits for my latest book, which is a biography. With historical fiction I often draw inspiration from real historical figures and events to create my fictional leads, but the story comes from my imagination, so I can take it where I want. To portray the life of a real person, the challenge has been to give a rounded picture when the source material has gaps (eg there’s often less about the person’s childhood), or major differences of opinion as to what the true facts of a situation was. Should the author give a warts and all picture? If the author sympathises with the subject will this inevitably come across (as bias, possibly?) I’m still working on it. More details next month when I’m clearer about publication date.

May 2018

5/13/2018

This week, to coincide with the royal wedding, there’s an exhibition celebrating weddings past and present in St John’s Church, Langcliffe, near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. Many photographs are on display as well as an amazing selection of gowns. Here’s a sample. Take a look if you’re passing and pop over the road to the village hall for a nice cream tea (Sunday afternoons).

April 2018

4/5/2018

If you happen to be in the Yorkshire Dales 6-8 April, drop into Settle and enjoy some of the seventy or so artistic events that make up this year’s Settle Stories Festival. Among many other things, a new Listening Gallery is being launched (in a phone box), you can make lanterns, learn to be a clown, take part in various workshops on storytelling, enjoy (?) a candlelit ghost walk and encounter a whale in Settle Market Place

February 2018

2/8/2018

Fellow members of the UK Romantic Novelists’ Association will know this is the exciting time of the year when the finalists for Romantic Novel of the Year are announced. See HOME page for link to view the shortlisted books in the various categories for 2018. If you like romance it’s an ideal opportunity to check out some good reads and perhaps try out a new author or two. Section winners and the overall winning book get announced at a gala evening on 5 March. Delighted to say this year’s short list includes one of my own regency romances “A Master of Litigation”.

January 2018

1/17/2018

My Christmas/New Year reads were an interesting mix. We stayed with relatives in Brighton and I finished Robert Harris’s “Conclave” (about selection of a new Pope) on Christmas Eve, a few hours before some of our party braved the chilly evening air to walk to the huge St Bartholomew’s Church for midnight mass. Lots of scarlet and gold robes, excellent choir and orchestra with Mozart’s Mass in F and a very large congregation (I mean a considerable number of us, not that we’d already stuffed ourselves with too much food). Then, one could argue on a similar theme, I read Malyn Bromfield’s “Mayflowers for November” a fresh take on Anne Boleyn’s rise and fall told through the eyes of a servant. After that it was Tracy Chevalier’s “New Boy”, a modern take on Othello set in a US elementary school. Finally I’ve just finished Helen Dunmore’s last book, “Birdcage Walk”, set in Bristol at the time of the French Revolution, when it did not do to be a radical, and when many building projects ground to a halt, including Royal York Crescent, where I lived as a student 50 years ago in a pre-gentrified basement flat. All different but all worth a read. Wishing you all HAPPY READING 2018!

December 2017

12/6/2017

Know how your books wander? I’d lent out a couple of guides on writing and forgotten them, until the borrower came across them in a clear out and returned them. If, like I did, you’re starting from scratch on fiction writing, both provide helpful advice and are very accessible. One’s more on structuring a novel, the other on the skill of editing your own work. They first came out a few decades ago but well worth a look.

how to write a damn good novel

Self-editing for fiction writers