Tim Vicary's Blog, page 2
August 3, 2016
More Sarah Newby – at last!
Well, I did it. Some authors claim to write three or four books a year but it took me well over a year and half – two years, perhaps – to write Broken Alibi, the fourth book in The Trials of Sarah Newby series of legal thrillers.
I guess it’s because I make the plots so complicated – there are three major strands in this one, and many scenes which were rewritten dozen times, as well as several longish chapters which were deleted altogether. But it works, I think – it’s at least as good as the books before it, and possibly better. That’s what several advance reviewers have said, anyway, and who am I to disagree?
“The best one so far!” Jonathan Sandford
“The author is going from strength to strength. In my opinion the characters are getting stronger and even more multi-dimensional with every book.” Elizabeth Kunze
“Even better than those written by Peter James! Highly recommended.” Paul Graham Brazendale
“Of all the Sarah Newby books this one is the best ever.” Les MacMahon.
“Suicide, murder? Get yourself into this series as fast as you can!” Loreen Lindsey.
Are they right? Click on the link or the cover, and judge for yourself!
Tim Vicary.
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January 2, 2016
An Indie Author’s Year – or not much but better than nothing.
One of the joys of being an indie author is that every morning – or at any time of day – I can log into KDP Amazon to see how many – or how few – books I’ve sold. And now, with the new payment by pages system for Kindle Unlimited, I can even see how many pages have been read in each book that day. This is a vast improvement on the old traditional publishing system, where my agent negotiated a modest advance, and then, once a year, deducted his 15% before telling me whether I had actually sold out the advance and earned – wait for it – maybe £105! This was good news, he said, very promising – well, maybe. But for the whole of that year I was in total ignorance about how many books had – or had not – sold. Occasionally I would pluck up courage to phone the publisher only to be told, by some secretary or student on job experience, that they didn’t know, the figures weren’t available just then, it was very difficult, maybe if I rang back later …. and so on.
A different world, in which the author loses control of his work the moment the publisher has accepted it. (To be fair, I’m talking about trade publishing here – my experience of educational publishing, with Oxford University Press, is much much better. But even they only issue sales and royalty figures twice a year)
But it’s not all sunshine. The drawback of being and indie author is that you don’t earn a lot of money – at least I don’t. Modest amounts, yes, but not enough to earn a living, not in my case anyway. Luckily, in my case I have a pension, and the benefit of those OUP royalties to fall back on. But every penny is really hard earned.
So, looking back over the year, what have I achieved, in this paying hobby of mine? Well, in the first pace, I have retired from the university, which is a joy, and gives me time to concentrate what failing energies I still have. It also gives the students someone really young and enthusiastic, which I hope they appreciate. I was that young handsome lecturer once!
The big achievement of the year is that I now have three audiobooks for sale – A Game of Proof, A Fatal Verdict, and Nobody’s Slave. The first two are narrated by my beautiful wife, Susan Edmonds, and the third by yours truly. All three were recorded in our professional recording studio – the walk-in airing cupboard! It’s the best soundproof environment we could manage, and I think we did pretty well, quite honestly. But it took a LOT of time and effort, as I’ve described in an earlier post. Since each audiobook took several months, and a professional recording studio costs about £100 an hour, this was the only way we could do it.
These three books have, for most of the year, been my best sellers (if that’s not too grandiose a title) All three legal thrillers in the series The Trials of Sarah Newby continue to pop in and out of the Amazon top 100 lists somewhere, for categories like ‘mysteries>legal thriller’, ‘mysteries>noir’ and so on, though US readers, once so keen, seem to have lost interest recently – why? Come on guys – take a look! Meanwhile the award-winning Nobody’s Slave has the honour of being adopted as a class set book by a go-ahead high school in Michigan. Terrific! Only one school so far, but thank you @jentealteach!
Earlier this year I also published Women of Courage, a boxed set of three historical novels, available on kindle. This means that Cat & Mouse and The Blood Upon the Rose (both previously published by Simon & Shuster UK – see above) are now linked in one set with The Monmouth Summer – all about brave women in tough historical situations.
And that’s it, apart from Broken Alibi – the long-awaited (by me, anyway) fourth book in the legal thriller series The Trials of Sarah Newby. What’s happening to that? Well, I’ve written about a third of it, and got myself into a tangle with the plot. This always happens – I just make things difficult for myself (and for Sarah too, but that’s deliberate) Anyway, as of today, I’ve sorted it out (again) and by Easter, maybe, it will be ready. Once again Sarah falls in love, battles through a gruelling court case, is emotionally shattered, and fights on until, in the end … well, we’ll have to see, I haven’t quite got there yet. (There’s always the mysteries>noir category if she doesn’t quite make it. And there are always casualties along the way)
So there we are. As I say every morning, when I log in to KDP Amazon to check on my pitifully low sales from the day before, ‘Well, it’s not a lot, but it’s a lot better than nothing.’ And, as another tough fictional heroine not unlike Sarah Newby once said: ‘Tomorrow is another day.’
Happy New Year!
Tim
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October 2, 2015
Free Audiobook Competition – Sarah Newby Quiz
I would like to invite all readers of Sarah Newby books to enter this simple quiz. Get all the answers right, and I will send you a code for a free audiobook. Start now!
The Trials of Sarah Newby – Quiz
How old was Sarah when she first became pregnant?
What sort of car was associated with this event?
What is her son’s name?
Which English city does Sarah live in? (hint – I live there too)
Name one important building in this city.
What is the name of the detective who admires her?
How many books has Sarah Newby been in so far?
Email your answers to me at tim.vicary@york.ac.uk with your name and email address.
If you send in 7 correct answers I will send you a code from Audible entitling you to a free audiobook download of either A Game of Proof or A Fatal Verdict (so long as stocks last) Please say which audiobook you would like and whether you would normally connect with amazon.com or amazon.co.uk
Thanks for playing
Tim Vicary
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September 12, 2015
What’s the point of audiobooks?
Five months is much too long. It must be. But that’s what it took me to edit my second audiobook, A Fatal Verdict, beautifully read (in my opinion) by Susan Edmonds. Why did it take so long?
Part of it’s the fear of getting something wrong, I suppose. I’m not a professional sound engineer, and when we recorded the first book in the series, A Game of Proof, I had to learn everything from scratch. I made all sorts of beginner’s of mistakes, which I wrote about in a blog post afterwards. Second time up, I felt sure it would go quicker. But it didn’t much. I avoided some of the original mistakes but made new ones, and became obsessed with getting everything right. Listeners will have to judge if I succeeded.
Anyway while I was doing this I had plenty of time to wonder about things. Why am I doing this? What’s the point of audiobooks? Why would anyone want to listen when they can just read?
Well, there are several situations where you can’t read, and audiobooks are very useful. I live in Yorkshire while the rest of my family live in Devon, which is at least 6 hours away by car. (8 hours on a bank holiday – don’t try it) Listening to the car radio is ok, but not all programs are equally interesting. Listening to music, the sort of music I like anyway, tends to shorten the journey but in the wrong way – it gets my adrenalin going so I drive way above the speed limit, risking my life and everyone else’s. After one such journey ended up in the ditch, I decided this has got to stop. So I bought an audiobook, and lo! – the journey seemed shorter, even though I drove more slowly. Magic! I was content to pootle along in the inside lane, letting my mind follow the story.
So audiobooks improve road safety! Whether on a long journey or the daily commute, they’re the perfect solution.
The other situation in which I listen to audiobooks is walking the dog. This isn’t a safety thing, it just encourages me to walk further. I guess you could do it jogging too, but my hip is bad, so I haven’t tried. It’s less good for gardening, I find, because if you suddenly focus on some detailed task you can miss part of the plot. The key thing is for the task to be routine, so that one part of your mind can do it perfectly while the other part listens to the story – left and right brain hemispheres, perhaps.
But what makes a good audiobook? And how is it different to film or TV? Well, obviously, there are no pictures, you have to make those up in your mind. I’ve heard people say that radio has the best pictures, but I think that’s nonsense, at least my mind doesn’t work that way. When I’m listening to an audiobook, what I concentrate on is – guess what? – the sound! Every reader’s voice has different qualities, and if you’re going to listen to that voice for ten or fifteen hours, you really have to like that voice quite a lot!
But you don’t want the voice to stay the same all the time, not if there are a lot of characters, dramatic scenes and emotion in the story. You need a reader who can bring those scenes to life, give each character a distinctive accent and tone, and make you feel emotion when appropriate. You need someone who can act as well as read.
That’s where I think I’m lucky. My beloved wife, Susan Edmonds, can do all of those things – at least I think so. And having listened to her voice through headphones for endless hours as we recorded A Game of Proof and A Fatal Verdict, I’m still not tired of listening to it. So I hope listeners will feel the same.
(I don’t like listening to my own voice though – I can’t imagine how she puts up with it.)
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the audiobook version brings the story to life in new ways. I wrote these books, after all, so you might imagine that I knew everything about them. But it isn’t quite so. I find myself thinking ‘ah, yes – that’s how she felt’ or ‘that’s why he said it that way’ – so I see the scene a bit differently. Maybe it’s like that for people who write plays and then see them acted on stage – I don’t know, I’ve never written a play.
So I guess audiobooks are a bit like TV or film adaptations (without the pictures) except that film and TV adaptations are always much shorter. All the description goes into the filming, and the dialogue is drastically cut. That works fine on the screen, but a normal experience after watching the film of a book (for me at least) is to think ‘Yes, that was fine but a lot of subtle details were lost.’ When you go back to the book you find much, much more.
Well, a good audiobook has the full unabridged text, read from start to finish by a good actor or actress. So all the original text is there, and the dramatic interpretation. Better than a film then, in that way!
Audiobooks are also a boon, of course, for people whose eyesight is poor or failing; for people ill in bed who find holding a kindle or book too tiring; for anyone whose partner is asleep beside them and doesn’t want to wake them; and indeed for anyone whose parents once read to them when they were young, and wants to recreate some of that comfortable feeling – there are endless uses, really.
So maybe Sue and I didn’t waste all those months after all – I hope not. If you’re looking for something to listen to why not give us a try? You could start with A Game of Proof or go straight onto A Fatal Verdict. You can be sure one thing – a lot of time and effort went into making each book, hopefully for your enjoyment!
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September 10, 2015
Why did Ross Poldark marry Demelza – and she him?
This question goes to the heart of why Poldark is such a hugely successful series. All novels are about love, but very few are about marriage.
In one way, it’s a simple Cinderella story. Demelza is a classic waif – a barefoot ragged urchin rescued from a dusty squabble over a dog in a fairground. At first Ross thinks she’s a boy – it’s only when he gets her home, strips her naked and washes her under the pump in the yard (a scene pretty much dodged by both TV series) that the reader, and probably Ross too, gets the first glimpse of the femininity that is to come. Once washed, she’s set to work as a kitchen maid, just like Cinderella.
So if Demelza is Cinderella, Ross must be her prince – though he’s a pretty grumpy one, at first. So how does she transform herself into a princess, and marry him? She faces plenty of challenges.
There are no ugly sisters, apart from her fellow servants, Jud and Prudie. But there are several big sisters, who are scary because they’re beautiful, not ugly. Ross’s first love, the ethereal Elizabeth. Mrs Teague, who schemes for Ross to marry her daughter Ruth. Ross’s cousin Verity. The formidable Aunt Agatha. Women whose beauty and breeding puts them as far above Demelza as it’s possible to be.
So her gradual transformation, from kitchen maid to wife, from urchin to lady, is the classic Cinderella journey.
How does Ross look to Demelza? Is he a prince, in her eyes? Well yes – not just because he’s so far above her in social class, but also because – so far as we know – he’s the first man this teenage urchin has ever thought about sexually, and – lucky girl – he’s a real gentleman. Not just socially, but in character. He behaves perfectly: he rescues her from the market, he gives her a job, he saves her from her drunken father. And then – he doesn’t want to have sex with her.
This is a key point: Ross doesn’t seduce Demelza, she seduces him. It’s very clearly and beautifully described in the first Poldark novel, and well acted in the modern BBC TV series, although – to author Winston Graham’s annoyance – it was portrayed quite differently in the original 1970s TV series. The scriptwriters back then had him marry her because he got her pregnant. Wrong. That’s not what happens at all, in the book.
She seduces him, and then he marries her, two days after they sleep together. Why does he do that?
Even Demelza can’t really believe it. (Nor could the scriptwriters in the 1970s!) He didn’t have to; he could have just carried on, taking advantage of this girl who’d thrown herself at him, as most men of his rank at that time would probably have done. ‘Well done, Ross lad,’ the other country squires would have said, ‘that’s what we all do – or would like to.’ ‘Tch, tch,’ their ladies would have gossiped, ‘just like his father, can’t keep his breeches on.’
But Ross could have coped with gossip – in fact he and Demelza had been coping with it, for the past three years. That’s why her father comes to take her home, because he’s afraid she’s living in sin, when she isn’t. So with perfect irony, she seduces Ross in order to avoid going home to a life of virtue! Naughty girl. But then Ross, who is ten years older, insists on marrying her. Why?
It’s not because he loves her; he doesn’t, yet. He’s still hopelessly in love with Elizabeth, who has married his cousin Charles. The day after Ross first sleeps with Demelza, Elizabeth comes to visit, seeking a reconciliation. As the beautiful, elegantly dressed Elizabeth sits in Ross’s parlour, Demelza comes in barefoot, carrying bluebells. Ross sees the two of them side by side and compares them: Demelza is earthenware, Elizabeth porcelain, he thinks. What has he done?
Demelza recognises the difference too. Elizabeth has ‘skin like ivory; never done a day’s work. She’s a lady and Ross is a gentleman, and I am a slut. But not last night, not last night.’ Elizabeth has come one day too late, she tells herself.
But if Ross doesn’t (yet) love Demelza, why marry her? She’s only a child of seventeen, they’ve slept together once. She’s not pregnant. He could still pursue Elizabeth, illicitly, or seek out a society beauty of his own class, like Ruth Teague. So why?
Perhaps this is what the scriptwriters in the 1970s couldn’t fathom. But the answer is quite clear. Ross marries Demelza is because he is angry. Angry and rejected; not just by Elizabeth, but by ‘respectable society.’
Demelza seduces him the same evening he comes home from court. He’s been pleading for mercy for his tenant, Jim Carter. Ross’s plea has been rejected – Jim Carter gets a fatal prison sentence for poaching a pheasant. Ross is furious with the magistrates – all members of the same ‘respectable society’ which has criticised him for months for sleeping with his kitchen maid, while secretly envying him at the same time. They’re all hypocrites, he thinks. And here’s this girl who loves him.
So for Ross, marrying Demelza is a sort of in-your-face challenge to his own class. While for Demelza, seducing Ross is a way of escaping the respectable Methodism of her father. They are both rebels; in a way they are marrying to live in sin!
A bit like Cinderella, perhaps? But much better, more complex. Ross Poldark is not a novel which ends with a wedding, like Jane Austen. It’s the first of twelve novels about a marriage, which lasts the rest of their lives. The sudden, shocking, unconventional marriage of Ross and Demelza is the heart of this magnificent, beautifully written series of books. Cinderella marries a prince who is angry. Read and enjoy.
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August 15, 2015
Why do I love Poldark?
Why do I love Poldark? The answer to this is simple: it’s great historical fiction. Winston Graham was a very talented writer, and his series of twelve historical novels about Ross and Demelza Poldark are some of my favourite books. I’ve read them all twice – most recently sharing the joy with my wife and my 90-year-old mother – and sometime soon I’ll probably go back to the beginning and start all over again.
Why? Well, because the books are full of marvellous stories, very well told. Winston Graham has all the gifts and skills you could possibly want in a novelist: he creates wonderful, well-drawn characters, he has a brilliant, accurate ear for dialogue, he writes beautiful, concise description, there’s an enduring love affair at the heart of it – what more could you want? The plots of these novels are wonderfully crafted; he is the master of setting a little time-bomb which will tick away in the back of your mind for hundreds of pages before it explodes. The stories are very dramatic – these believable, very real characters do things of quite breath-taking audacity which the author has the skill to develop thoroughly so that all the consequences are quite fully worked out. The villains are truly evil but in human terms thoroughly understandable, and the good characters sympathetic but satisfyingly flawed. He has a great gift for comedy too – particularly in the early books where the antics of Jud and Judie Paynter had me laughing out loud. The historical research should not be forgotten either – he paints a wholly believable picture of Cornwall during the Napoleonic Wars and the early Industrial Revolution, which brings a bygone world to life. If I could write historical fiction half as good as this I’d be proud.
Like many people of my age, I first knew of these books through the BBC TV series which was a great hit back in the 1970s, with Robin Ellis and Angharad Rees as Ross and Demelza. The whole nation used to stop to watch it; when it was broadcast on Sunday evenings vicars used to reschedule church services to be sure not to clash with Poldark. I think I read the first two books then, before university, work and family took over. But coming back to them in later life I realise what an enormous achievement they really are. And now – joy of joys! – here it is again, the BBC making a modern version, this time with Aidan Turner and Elinor Tomlinson as the main characters. And this time, the BBC promise to film episodes from all twelve books – their answer to Downton Abbey, perhaps!
But Downton, good as it is, is only a TV series. Poldark is much more than that – what you see on TV only skims the surface. To really get into the characters, and understand their world, it’s worth exploring the stories as Winston Graham originally wrote them. It’s definitely worth it. If you are looking for a long, well-written, fully realised series of historical novels to sink into and enjoy, these are the books for you!
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July 29, 2015
What is a legal thriller?
‘So what is a legal thriller?’ she asks. ‘Some sort of drug?’
‘No, of course not,’ I say. ‘Though they can be quite addictive, I suppose. A legal thriller is a book – a sort of crime novel.’
‘So why not call it a crime novel then, and have done with it? At least then, I’d know what you were talking about.’ This woman, Angela, specialises in nit-picking awkward questions. I can never make up my mind whether she’s being deliberately annoying, or if she really wants to know. Anyway, this time I decided to humour her.
‘A legal thriller is a sort of crime novel in which the main characters are lawyers. That makes it different – and sort of special.’
‘I don’t get it. Lawyers are people too; they can even be criminals. What’s the difference?’
‘Well, think of your ordinary crime novel. It’s a detective story really. The main characters are either criminals, or the police, right? There may be lots of other characters but those two are the main types. With me so far?’
‘Yes, I suppose …’ She has this irritating frown, Angela – you can see it crossing her forehead, like a cloud on a sunny day, bringing her eyebrows together. I can feel the wheels turning in her skull, and a ‘but’ coming on. But this time I’m too quick.
‘So in your basic crime novel a crime has been committed and it’s the detective’s job to solve it, ok? Which he or she does with varying degrees of skill. And at the end of the story, the crime is solved. The brilliant detective confronts the criminal with a mass of evidence, which proves conclusively who did it, how and why. And very often the criminal owns up and confesses. That’s it – end of story – problem solved.’
‘Like Agatha Christie’s Poirot, you mean?’
‘Exactly. Or a thousand other detectives. Very popular type of book, very satisfying.’
‘So why don’t you write stories like that?’
‘Because … I don’t know. I’m stupid, I guess.’
‘You said it. Not me.’ She has this smug grin which really gets under my skin. I don’t think this woman has ever written a story in her life. But she loves picking holes in mine. Maybe I should take it as a form of flattery. After all, she is interested.
‘Look,’ I say. ‘Do you really trust the police?’ I know this will get to her. She doesn’t trust anybody. Not even herself, I think sometimes. Maybe I’ll explore that idea, one day.
‘No …’ she agrees reluctantly.
‘Have you ever met a detective as smart as Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple?’
‘Obviously not. The one who came out when my house burgled was pretty dim, actually. He wasn’t even going to take fingerprints until I said …’
‘Exactly.’ I cut her off smartly. I know this woman. A story like that can go on for hours, once she gets started. She can keep on talking even if I leave the room. I’ve seen it happen.
‘So what’s missing in a normal crime novel is the trial, the courtroom drama, the lawyers. That’s what makes a legal thriller different, see? In real life, after all, the story doesn’t end when the police make an arrest – they have to present their evidence in court. And the detective doesn’t just stand in front of the fireplace, looking smug, like Poirot – he has to go into the witness box to be cross-examined by the defence lawyer, whose job is to test that evidence, and see if it proves what he claims it does. ‘
‘To pick holes in it, you mean. To argue black is white and let the guilty go free.’
‘Well, sometimes yes .’ I wonder if Angela ever thought of becoming a lawyer. She has the right kind of cussed temperament, certainly. ‘So to put it simply, a legal thriller is a crime novel with a whole extra dimension – the courtroom drama where the evidence is tested and argued over by the lawyers, the jury and the judge. And all of these people can be characters in the story too – some good, some bad. Lawyers are supposed to be honest, but – just like the police – not always. ‘
‘So a legal thriller is a crime novel with lawyers and a trial at the heart of the story?’
‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’
‘Ok. So who writes this type of books?’
‘Well, John Grisham, obviously. Surely you’ve heard of him? And Scott Turow, Michael Connelly. Very famous writers.’
‘All American.’ She sighs. Angela is horribly prejudiced. I’m really sorry about this. It’s one of her worst qualities. But there it is. I told you she was awkward. ‘Aren’t there any British authors who write legal thrillers too?’
I pretend to think about this. It’s the question I was hoping she would ask all along, of course. But now the moment’s come I feel shy.
‘Well, there’s a guy called John Burton. He’s a QC so he knows a lot about the law. Lots of accurate courtroom drama.’
‘Ok. Anyone else?’
‘Well, yes. There’s me.’
‘You?’
I wish she wouldn’t laugh like that. It looks bad. But then she stops. Is that a friendly smile after all? A hint of kindness?
‘Well,’ I say in a small voice. ‘You could start with A Game of Proof. If you’re interested, that is. It’s not bad.’
We’re very British, you understand. We don’t blow our own trumpets. At least, not very loud. Just quietly, like this.
‘Not bad, you say? I won’t be wasting my time?’
‘I don’t think so. It’s got a few decent reviews.’
She sighs. ‘A Game of Proof. A legal thriller, by Tim Vicary. Hm. Well, I could try a few pages, I suppose. But I warn you, I’m always honest.’
Don’t I know it. This could be a serious test of our friendship. If we have one. I wish I hadn’t started now. Oh well.
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February 15, 2012
Hello
But I also write full-length crime and historical novels, which you can read about on my website http://www.timvicary.com
The crime novels are legal thrillers, featuring a tough British barrister called Sarah Newby. The first one of these A Game of Proof, was published in print under a pseudonym, Megan Stark, but now I've republished it under my own name, on Amazon Kindle and in print, together with two sequels, A Fatal Verdict and Bold Counsel, also starring Sarah Newby.
Two of the other novels, The Blood Upon the Rose and Cat and Mouse, are historical thrillers set just before and after the first world war, in the same period as the TV series Downton Abbey. Just as in Downton Abbey, the characters have complex adventures in aristocratic houses, above and below stairs, and are influenced by the dramatic political events of the time, in England and in Ireland.
The third historical novel, the Monmouth Summer, is a tragic tale of love and heroism whose characters are entangled with the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685. It also features England's most notorious judge, Judge Jeffries.
To read more about any of these books visit my website http://www.timvicary.com
