Steven A. McKay's Blog, page 12

Sworn to God cover reveal. My designers have done it again!

My new Friar Tuck/Little John/Will Scarlet novella/novel Sworn to God is almost finished. The editor has gone over it, and now I just have to sort things in line with her suggestions, so it should be published later this month (November 2020).

For now, check out the cover art! It was inspired by a photo of a cross I found on the internet, and the idea of a bloody sword forming a similar ‘cross’ in front of the main one seemed nice and symbolic. I even wrote a scene in the book to fit with it, as I liked the image so much. Surprisingly, that sword doesn’t even belong to one of our heroes…

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Sworn to God is not a ‘Christmas’ story as such, but there are sections set in winter, and one Xmas celebration in a church decorated with candles and holly etc, so it should be perfect for those of you who like to curl up with a book when it’s frosty outside and you’ve a glass of mulled wine in your hand! It can be read as a standalone tale, but it’s actually the third of these winter mysteries, following Friar Tuck and the Christmas Devil and Faces of Darkness.

Let me know what you think of the cover art, and look out for the Kindle pre-order going live sometime this month.

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The Druid to be translated into Spanish!

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BIG NEWS! For me anyway…I’ve just signed a deal with a Spanish publisher for The Druid. [image error]

Forest Lord Kindle bargains – Wolf’s Head and The Wolf And The Raven on special offer!

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Amazon UK have included books 1 and 2 of my Forest Lord series in their November Monthly Deal! You can pick up Wolf’s Head and The Wolf and the Raven for just 99p each, a saving of £4 on the usual price!

I expect most of you reading this have already read these, since they were my first two books, but if you’ve still to check them out now is the ideal time.

Get them HERE!

If you ARE new to that series, you can find my suggested reading order HERE. There’s quite a lot to dive into, with more to come, as today I’ll be sending the next one in the series, Sworn to God, to my editor. It’s a sequel of sorts to Faces of Darkness and sees Tuck and John teaming up again to look at a strange religious sect. Will Scarlet joins them this time too and there’s plenty to get your teeth into as, rather than being a 25,000 word novella like the previous ones, it’s currently at 55,000 words so it’s actually a short novel! Look out for the cover reveal soon.

Lucia – A Roman Slave’s Tale is out today! Check out this truly incredible review. Wow.

My novel Lucia-A Roman Slave’s Tale, which has only been available on Audible for the past 12 months, is out TODAY on Kindle (paperback edition should go live sometime today I hope, so keep checking if that’s the format you’re after). Links below:

UK link

USA link

Australia link

Canada link

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Also, here’s a link to a review which actually made me quite emotional. Sharon Bennett Connolly is a historian and author who reads a LOT of historical fiction so she knows her stuff. She said this morning on Facebook that Lucia is the best book she’s read this year and, well, just check out her review. I wrote the novel with the hope that it would touch people on an emotional level – not just the “Raaaarrrr! Fighting, drinking, shooting people with longbows!” stuff which I absolutely love, but with Lucia I hoped to reach people in a different way. Sharon’s review suggests I managed it, and I’m really pleased about it. See what she had to say at the link below:

Book Corner: Lucia by Steven A. McKay

Interview with me about the writing of LUCIA – A Roman Slave’s Tale

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Check out this brand new Q&A with me on author Tony Riches’ site!

“As if a lightning bolt came out of the sky and hit me, pretty much the entire idea for Lucia came to me right at that moment, in the middle of a wet street in Glasgow. I literally ran back to my car right then so I could jot it all down in my notebook.”

Read the rest HERE

Don’t forget Lucia – A Roman Slave’s Tale can be pre-ordered NOW on Kindle. It’s available to listen to right now on Audible though if you can’t wait!

Lucia – A Roman Slave’s Tale. Pre-order now on Kindle.

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My standalone novel, Lucia, which follows the life of a young girl taken into slavery by invading Romans, is now available for pre-order. Paperback edition will be out on the 23rd of October!

UK link

USA link

Australia link

Canada link

What makes life worth living for a slave of Rome? The promise of vengeance, no matter how long it takes!
At eight years old, Lucia is torn from the life she knew. Her village burned to the ground and parents murdered by Romans, she is kidnapped, sold and shipped abroad to the Villa Tempestatis in Britannia to serve the young Roman army officer Castus.
Faced with a bleak future of decades of servitude to her master, as well as sadistic brutality at the hands of his manageress, Paltucca, she finds herself fixated by one thought alone: vengeance.
Yet Villa Tempestatis, with its picturesque surroundings in Britannia’s green countryside, offers a life that’s a little easier than elsewhere in the Roman empire. The slaves form strong bonds of love and friendship, enjoy feasts and holiday celebrations together, and are even allowed, sometimes, to start a family. Many of them are happy enough with their lot.
Despite that, every moment of Lucia’s life is blighted by her hatred for Castus and Paltucca, and only seeing them both destroyed will bring her a measure of peace, even if it takes decades of work and planning…
This standalone novel from the bestselling author of The Druid tells the tale of one woman’s life against a richly woven backdrop of love and hate, revenge and redemption, and is quite unique in modern fiction.

PRAISE FOR LUCIA

“Lucia is a story that is at once desperate and uplifting, a story that touches you deep in your soul. If you only read one more book this year, it should be Lucia.” – Sharon Bennett Connolly, author of Silk and the Sword

“A compelling 5* story from McKay, an author who continues to amaze me with his writing.” – David’s Book Blurg

“McKay changes gear and slips easily into a different world and commands it from the start. This is the Shawshank Redemption of revenge stories.” – David N. Humphrey, author of Valguard – Knight of Coins

The Northern Throne (Warrior Druid of Britain Chronicles, #3)

“this series just keeps getting better” – Check out Hoover Book Reviews thoughts on The Northern Throne!

Historical Fiction reviews

bySteven A. McKay

BLURB

AD431, Spring
Bellicus the Druid and his friend Duro, a former Roman centurion, have suffered a great deal in recent years but, for them, things are about to get much worse.
Britain is changing. The Romans have gone and warriors from many different places seek to fill the void the legions left behind. In the south, the Saxons’ expansion seems unstoppable despite the efforts of the warlord Arthur, while north of Hadrian’s Wall various kings and chieftains are always looking to extend their borders.
In Dun Breatann, capital of Alt Clota, Bellicus believes the disparate tribes must put aside their differences, become allies, and face the Saxon threat together, under one High King. Or High Queen…
Small-minded men do not always look at the bigger picture though, and when Bellicus and Duro seek to form a pact with an old enemy events take a shocking…

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LUCIA Kindle & paperback cover reveal!

My standalone novel about a young girl taken into slavery by the Romans and spending her life in servitude in Britannia has been out exclusively on Audible for the past year. Well, now it’s finally coming to Kindle and print! It’ll be published on October 23rd, and there will be a pre-order a couple of weeks before that. I’m seriously proud of the novel, I honestly think it’s unique and nothing like my other books. I hope you all enjoy it, although it’s a tough read in many places given the subject matter. Below is the cover art for the new versions (I would have just used the Audible cover but they couldn’t give me permission). Remember, you can still get this on Audible, with superb narration from Imogen Church – why not use a credit on it?

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Jack O’ Legs. Who? A very strange addition to the Robin Hood legend!

I was sent a message on Facebook the other day by one of my readers (thanks Simon), telling me he’d been out walking in Hertfordshire and mentioning “Jack O Legs” and Little John. I was confused. What the hell was a Jack O Legs? Was it just a random auto-correct, changing normal, recognizable words into a bizarre phrase? Was it supposed to say Jack O’ Lantern? Jack-in-the-Green? But I was intrigued, so I did what any good historical researcher does, and headed straight to Google!

At this point, I’ve written four full novels about Robin Hood and a fair few spin-off novellas like Faces of Darkness which are also about the characters from that legend, including Friar Tuck and Sir Richard-At-Lee. It’s fair to say I’ve done a fair bit of research on this, but Jack O’Legs was something I’d never heard about before. I actually felt a little embarrassed, wondering if I’d completely overlooked some famous part of the well-known mythos! And that feeling grew stronger when I typed it into Google and ended up on a Wikipedia page describing Jack O’Legs. How did I miss this? As you probably know, anything, or anyone, with a Wikipedia page must be fairly well known and have made some kind of cultural impact (I still dream of having one myself, if anyone wants to create one and stroke my ego, thanks).

[image error]Robin Hood. Or is it Jack O’Legs?

So Jack – apparently he was an archer from Hertfordshire in England, who stole from the rich to give to the poor and, when he was dying, shot an arrow and asked to be buried where it landed. Notice any similarities there? Of course, these are all elements of Robin Hood’s story. There are some differences though, as Jack was said to be a giant, so tall that he could look into the upstairs windows of large houses! Boulders marking the head and foot of his grave are fourteen feet apart, and one source claims his body was doubled up, suggesting he was actually more like thirty feet tall. Could this be a conflation of Robin Hood and his enormous companion Little John? Taking two characters and melding them into one? Maybe. Jack was supposed to live in a cave though, which doesn’t seem to match anything from the Hood legend. It also seems unlikely, as there’s not really any caves around the place Jack was said to hail from. 

He died when, after a bad harvest, the bakers in his village of Baldock raised the price of flour. Jack ambushed them, stole the flour and gave it away. In return, the bakers caught Jack, blinded him and then he asked to be given his bow. Shooting an arrow, he requested to be buried where it landed, this was done, and there his story ends. I wouldn’t have thought bakers would be classed as “rich”, and raising prices in times of famine seems a natural occurrence (just look at the prices of hand sanitiser during 2020!), so I’m not entirely sure how this could be seen as “robbing from the rich to give to the poor”. Still, the part about being buried where his arrow fell is an obvious take from the Robin Hood legend.

Or could it have been the other way around? Does Jack predate Robin? An old poem from 1521 says the gibbet in Baldock was made for “Jack Leg” and, since Baldock dates from 1148 we can assume the legend arose between those dates. Unfortunately, so did tales of Robin Hood, the earliest mention of which was in 1377 when William Langland referenced “rymes of Robin Hood.” The first written account of Jack’s full story came in 1728, whereas the oldest Hood ballads date from three hundred years earlier. So it’s hard to say which legend borrowed from the other, if either did – maybe the similarities are mere coincidence? Or maybe both took elements of some OTHER, even earlier mythical character…

Today, there’s the aforementioned gravesite of Jack, there’s a “Jack’s Hill” near Graveley, and you could even buy a Jack O’ Legs beer from Tring Brewery although they’ve stopped production which is a shame. I’d have liked to try it!

So, back to the question I asked myself at the start of this piece: How could I have never heard of this guy before? Well, I took out my Robin Hood research books by people like Graham Phillips & Martin Keatman, John Matthews, John Paul Davis and J.C. Holt and looked up the index. None of them mention Jack O’Legs. What about general folklore books then? The Reader’s Digest’s Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain, an exhaustive collection of stories from all over the country (and famous for influencing Jethro Tull’s “Songs From The Wood” album) has no mention of Jack O’Legs. Myths and Legends of the Celts by James McKillopincludes a giant known as Jack in one chapter, but he’s from Cornwall and a different legend altogether.
So what do you think of this strange myth? Personally, I believe there was probably a real man who liked to steal from people and share his ill-gotten gains with his friends. He was ambushed by some angry bakers who were sick of him robbing them, dragged to town where his eyes were put out, and then he was hung. His friends exaggerated his height and his exploits, probably adding elements of the Robin Hood story which was likely well known in the area, and now we have this enduring but obscure story. I hope you found this little blog post interesting – I certainly enjoyed learning more about a piece of folklore that I’d never heard of before. 

And to the question of what Jack O’Legs might mean? Well, Jack of Legs of course! A dictionary of slang words from 1811 defined it as pertaining to a tall, long-legged person.

[image error]Mural of the giant Jack O’Legs painted by Patricia Tew in the Grange Junior School in Letchworth in Hertfordshire on its opening in 1952 for John Newsom’s ‘Art for All’ programme in new build schools from 1947-53.

SOURCES

http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/content/articles/2008/09/05/herts_myths_jack_o_legs_feature.shtml

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_o%27_Legs

http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/origins37-the-giant-jack-olegs.html

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100015130

Fancy a FREE Robin Hood short story? Just click the red button to register and you’ll get “The Rescue” – a Forest Lord tale – completely FREE :

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Book Corner: The Northern Throne by Steven A. McKay

New review, check it out! “The Northern Throne is a wonderful, engaging adventure that, once again, leaves the reader desperate for the next instalment.”

History... the interesting bits!

Bellicus the Druid and his friend Duro, a former Roman centurion, have already suffered a great deal in recent years but, for them, things are about to get even worse.
Britain is changing. The Romans have gone and warriors from many different places seek to fill the void the legions left behind. In the south, the Saxons’ expansion seems unstoppable despite the efforts of the warlord Arthur, while north of Hadrian’s Wall various kings and chieftains are always looking to extend their borders.

In Dun Breatann, Bellicus believes the disparate northern tribes must put aside their differences, become allies, and face the Saxon threat together, under one High King.

Or High Queen…

Small-minded men don’t always look at the bigger picture though, and, when Bellicus and Duro seek to form a pact with an old enemy, events take a shocking and terrible turn that will leave the companions changed forever.

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