Jessica Rydill's Blog
September 19, 2024
Review of Of Sands and Tides by Jan Edwards
A satisfying read with true suspense and a redoubtable heroine
Jan Edwards has put together a gripping collection of eight dark tales featuring spirited government agent Captain Georgianna Forsythe (Georgi to her friends). The agency Georgi works for, The Ministry of Arcane Events, sends her on perilous missions in Britain and beyond, where she must fight horrific powers from the distant past. Set in the 1930s, the stories are rich in well-researched detail and memorable characters.
In the first of these Lovecraftian tales, Hand of the Nile, Georgi travels to Egypt on a mission to investigate strange deaths in the wake of the Tutankhamen excavation. What she finds will test her skills and courage to their limits and beyond. We are taken on a journey into true horror of mind and body as she meets Nyarlathotep, the dark deity whose influence will mark her for life.
In the second story, Crawling Chaos in Climping, Georgi is watching over an archaeological dig on the Sussex coast, where a careless and clueless Professor unearths an ancient evil – and more. Once again, Georgi’s skill is tested beyond endurance, but she discovers an ally in the most unexpected place, who introduces her to powers she did not suspect she possessed.
The Decks Below sees Georgi brought in to help the Royal Navy when the salvage of a lost submarine awakens powerful and deadly creatures. As Georgi begins to learn about her powers and how they are linked to elemental forces, she must fight for her life amidst bloody carnage in the waters of Lyme Bay.
In Tamesis and the God’s Skull, an unearthly massacre in the City of London brings Georgi face to face with the champion of a god. Who is Tamsin, the mysterious woman who arranges to meet her by the shores of the river Thames, and is she an ally – or an enemy? Georgi begins to understand who she is as she descends into a stronghold far below London.
Penumbra Over Millwall is a terrifying adventure set in the London Fog. Georgi is dispatched on a strange errand to visit an old woman who used to work for the Ministry. Chilling descriptions evoke the “pea souper” and the eerie atmosphere as Georgi makes her way from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, pursued by creatures from the deep.
In Below the Plimsoll Line, Georgi visits a country house, helping an old school friend whose ancestral library is plagued by more than the usual poltergeist. As Georgi encounters an evil from the family’s past, the sea and its denizens continue to haunt her.
The Loch Ness Deal sees Georgi on unfamiliar territory in Scotland when she is ordered to investigate supposed sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and foil the curious press. She must venture into the fathomless waters of the loch, and trust in her skills in combat with a mysterious creature whose origin is captured in local folklore.
The last story, Beneath the British Museum, turns on the legend of a cursed Mummy case, and terrifying screams heard in the tube tunnels below the British Museum. When Georgi ventures into the depths of the Egyptology department, she meets both a familiar ally and an old enemy who wants to keep her forever – dead or alive.
Of Sands and Tides is a fine collection of stories of derring-do, rooted in well-researched historical reality, myth and folklore. Jan Edwards is a master of detail and suspense. The stories are at their best when she marries authentic details with vividly realised magic, conjuring up horror in familiar scenes.
Georgianna herself is a great character, always resourceful, but growing through every adventure as she learns more about her powers and her true identity.
Buy Of Sands and Tides from Amazon UK, Amazon US, and wherever books are sold…
About Jan Edwards:
Jan Edwards is the UK author of the Bunch Courtney Investigations – the WW2 crime series, which gained her an ‘Arnold Bennett Book Prize’. She has 50+ short stories in horror, fantasy, mainstream and crime anthologies, including: Mammoth Book of Folk Horror, Criminal Shorts, The Book of Extraordinary New Sherlock Holmes Stories and volumes of the MX Books of New Sherlock Holmes Stories series. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association and member and past chair of the British Fantasy Society. Two titles due out in 2024 – Of Sand and Tides urban/cosmic horror and
Deadly Plot: Bunch Courtney Investigations #5.
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February 2, 2024
January 27, 2024
Review of Deadly Plot by Jan Edwards (A Bunch Courtney Investigation Book 5)
Deadly Plot by Jan Edwards“Digging for Victory” takes on a new meaning in the latest instalment of Jan Edwards’s Bunch Courtney Investigations series, Deadly Plot. Bunch Courtney, despite having turned down the role of consulting detective to the Sussex Constabulary, is summoned by her friend Chief Inspector White to Victory Gardens, where foxes have unearthed the body of an unknown man after vegetable thieves disturbed one of the new allotments made from the grounds of the cricket club.
The plot belongs to a newcomer to the area, Marion Cawston, a mysterious journalist whom the locals suspect of obtaining it by undue influence. The stage is set for a new investigation for Courtney and Wright, but soon it emerges that more is at stake than a dispute over stolen vegetables…
Her contemporaries might have called Bunch Courtney a “plucky gel” but she is much more than that. Trying to run what is left of the family estate at Perringham from the Dower House where her grandmother Beatrice still lives (the main house has been commandeered) Bunch is still recovering from the death of her mother, Theadora. Now 32 years old, she is also having to contend with her grandmother’s attempts to marry her off to the dashing Henry Marsham, and the efforts of the various men in her life, from Marsham and Wright to her father, senior War Office member Sir Edward Courtney, to stop her investigating crime and getting into danger.
Whether riding her sturdy pony Perry or driving her MG, Bunch is eager to evade these attempts to run her life. She sets out to solve the mystery of the body in Victory Gardens, who turns out to be an escaped Italian POW. As Wright is called away to a more urgent case, Bunch is piqued by her curiosity and her fierce sense of justice to find out who killed the man. What she unearths has connections far from Wyncombe and its parochial affairs, and once more she ventures into danger in a world at war, where being a woman gives her no automatic protection.
Jan Edwards has pulled off another terrific episode of Bunch Courtney’s adventures. Bunch is a likeable and smart main character, torn between her duty to the family estate, the attentions of two very different men, and her passion for solving crime. She is surrounded by an ensemble of great characters, some well-known to the reader, like her widowed sister Dodo and her formidable but aging grandmother Beatrice; others new, like the shady Marion Cawston, the unctuous Reggie Tallboys and his men-only golf-club, and the CO of the prisoner-of-war camp, Hamish Campbell. Even minor characters are well fleshed-out, and once again Edwards’ gift for detail gives the story a strong sense of place and time. There has been meticulous research, but the wealth of historical detail never burdens the narrative.
A fun read, whether or not you have met Bunch Courtney before. The sense of peril grows throughout until the story reaches a terrifying climax. By then, the list of the dead has grown, and Bunch finds herself in mortal peril as she faces a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to get what they want.
Get Deadly Plot here – the book launches on 2nd February 2024
About Jan Edwards:
Jan Edwards is a UK author with several novels and many short stories in horror, fantasy, mainstream and crime fiction, including the Mammoth Book of Folk Horror as well as various volumes of the MX Books of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. Jan is an editor with the award-winning Alchemy Press (includes The Alchemy Press Books of Horror series. Jan was awarded the Arnold Bennett Book Prize for Winter Downs, the first in her ww2 crime series The Bunch Courtney Investigations.
To read more about Jan go to: https://janedwardsblog.wordpress.com/
Winner of the Arnold Bennett Book Prize; Karl Edward Wagner award; Winchester Slim Volume award (for Sussex Tales). Short listed for both the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction and Best Collection.
November 30, 2023
Review: The Ice Angel by Misha Herwin
The Ice Angel coverLetty Parker and her friends are growing up. Already she is fonder of her old friend Jeb than she wants to admit. But trouble is in the air. Gabriel, their half-human ally and son of Count Nicholas, leader of the Dark Ones, sets out on a journey to discover his heritage as one of the Nephilim. Though he believes it safe to leave his human friends behind, things are not as they seem…
Hepzibah Harrington, Letty’s long-time friend and part-owner of shipping firm Harrington and Company, finds her redoubtable Aunt Beulah behaving out of character. Dressed to the nines, she is simpering in the presence of sinister Mr Murkstone, who has appeared as if from nowhere and claims to be Hepzibah’s legal guardian, her other guardians having fallen sick or died.
Murkstone is a truly gruesome Dickensian villain, who is soon trying to marry off his sickly ward Tom to Hepzibah. And he forces her to hand over the day-to-day running of the business she had been managing in the absence of her wayward brother Simeon. Tom himself seems to be under a kind of spell, as if he were a ghost.
Another mystery: strange, white ferret-like creatures are appearing on the streets of Bristol. They understand human speech and are being used as spies by someone – but who?
Letty and her friends at Letty Parker Investigations are not without allies as they find themselves facing possibly their biggest challenge yet. Letty receives a desperate message from her mother, feckless opera-singer Bella, last seen heading for Moskovy with her new beau, Count Zopolsky. Letty feared the blue sapphire ring Bella wore on her finger was cursed. When Hepzibah gives Letty a passage north on the Vareena, one of her ships, Jeb learns that Letty is heading into a trap. He tries to stop her from sailing, but is attacked before he can reach the docks. Letty sets off alone, unaware that she is in deadly peril, while her friends, especially Hepzibah, find themselves facing equal danger on their home turf.
This is a cracker of a story. Letty remains my favourite character, but Hepzibah is a faithful friend, and there is a gallery of grotesques and gargoyles, from the creepy Mr Murkstone with his hair pomade to the sinister Captain Novotny of the ship Vareena, and the mysterious coach driver Homunculus Ridden, who only appears in times of need. The names alone are wonderful, and Misha Herwin evokes a magical world of landscapes and people as Letty travels into the unknown. Most mysterious of all is the Ice Angel herself. Who is she, and is she good or evil? What are her motives? The reader is kept in suspense until the last page.
AmazonJuly 8, 2023
June 25, 2023
Bunch Courtney Investigations And More! #bunchcourtney #ww2crime #crimefiction #cosycrime #historicalfiction #bookevents
News from Jan Edwards, who will be at the Birmingham Book Signing Event on 15th July at the Council House, Birmingham. Now read on…
Some of you will already be aware that I shall be at the Birmingham Book Signing Event on 15th July at the Council House, Birmingham. In addition to appearing on panels I shall – as the event title suggests – be signing my books!
What shall I have there to be purchased and signed? Obviously my Bunch Courtney Investigations!
Winter Downs: Bunch Courtney Investigations #1 When Bunch Courtney is riding across the South Downs the last thing she expects to stumble upon is the body of her friend Jonathan Frampton. The shotgun at his feet speaks of suicide but Bunch is not convinced. – In the winter of 1940 a tiny rural community on the Sussex Downs, already preparing for invasion, finds itself deep in the grip of a snowy landscape with an ice-cold killer on the loose.
Winner of the Arnold Bennett Book Prize!
In Her Defence…
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December 6, 2022
The World of Letty Parker
Misha Herwin writes about the world of Letty Parker, and keeping track of the characters and details of a rich imaginary world…
When you’re about to write the last book in a six book series you have a pretty good idea of the world in which your characters live.
Letty Parker and her associates are part of the rich fabric of an alternative Bristol. Set in the time of Sarah Guppy and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, I’ve done my best to give it an authentic Victorian flavour. Getting the details of Victorian life is easy. If I don’t already know I can google what I need to find out. I also know my main characters pretty well. I have what they look like, their histories and their likes and dislikes fixed in my mind.
It’s the minor characters, the people that only appear once or twice in the series, who are the problem.
To solve this I followed the advice of friend and fellow author, Jan Edwards and made a chart. Labelled “The…
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December 1, 2022
In Cases of Murder #IndieCrimeScene #crimefiction @Rasumova
Jan Edwards’ featured new release on the Indie Crime Scene as In Cases of Murder launches today – a new Bunch Courtney Investigation!
Go and visit Indie Crime Scene today for an extract from In Cases of Murder !
November 28, 2022
One for All and All for One
Misha Herwin celebrates the support of writer friends, as Jan Edwards prepares to release In Cases of Murder
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Writing can be a lonely job. You sit at a desk, café table, laptop and work. Interruptions are distractions, chat is not welcomed as it can break the flow. Hours can go past without seeing anyone.
All that can be great for productivity, on the other hand humans need other people. We all want to be acknowledged and valued and if you are in the process of creating then there are times when you definitely need support and reassurance that what you are doing isn’t really a complete waste of time and effort.
Family and friends can’t really fulfil this role, what you need is someone who knows what you’re going through. That is where other writers are a lifeline.
For as long as I’ve been writing and publishing one of the things that has struck me is how supportive the writing community is of each other. It doesn’t…
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November 27, 2022
Lily Kendall – In Cases of Murder #crimefiction #writing #HistoryWritersDay22 @Mishaherwin @Rasumova @Bookstocover @BoBookPublicity @Penkhullpress
Jan Edwards on the historical background for In Cases of Murder and London’s female gangsters!
The fun part about writing historical fiction, be that for crime or romance or any other market, is the chance to weave forgotten snippets and people into your protag’s world.
The setting for In Cases of Murder is the wartime era of the 1940s, so including the obvious icons of the era such as Churchill or Chamberlain is something of a given. It would be hard to avoid them if you wanted to build a believable backdrop for your story.
Knowing lesser names of the period can add that extra layer.
In Cases of Murder takes Bunch and Wright into South London, and while researching 1930s and 40s London crime I came across the infamous female Forty Thieves – allied by blood to the male dominated Elephant gang (after the area around Elephant and Castle). Though the gang’s roots stem from the Regency period the Forty Thieves’ heyday was the…
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