KAREN CHARLTON
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Welcome to the official website of historical novelist KAREN CHARLTON

Review: Ramlin Rose by Sheila Stewart

27/7/2015

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Ramlin Rose:
The Boatwoman's story

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I love this book. I read my mother’s copy years ago and I picked it up again to dip into as part of a research project for my current novel, and I haven’t been able to put it down since. Sheila Stewart gives Rose such a distinctive voice that you are hooked from the first page.

Rose’s narrative is a fascinating, unsentimental account of the life (and death) of the men and women who worked ours canals during the first fifty years of the nineteenth century. It vividly recreates their culture, traditions, hardships and tragedies. But it also reveals the incredible love, pride and strong-bond between this close-knit, free-floating community who were isolated from land-locked Britain for generations.

Thoroughly recommended.

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News: Third Detective Lavender Novel Started

22/7/2015

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#amwriting
(The Sculthorpe Murder)

I've got a nineteenth century map of Leicestershire pinned to my noticeboard, alongside a calendar for the year 1810.
 Empty coffee mugs and an over-flowing ashtray jostle for space on my desk with notebooks full of scribble, heavily-annotated sheets of information I've printed off from the Internet and some notes about the canals my Dad gave me....
I'm away. Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods have arrived in Market Harborough and are now 2,000 words into their next adventure!

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News: The Harrogate Crime Festival

18/7/2015

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Thomas & Mercer Author Reunion

I didn't take part in this years' Crime Festival in Harrogate but Amazon Publishing threw a slap-up meal for their authors at The White Hart Hotel and invited me to come along too. As Harrogate is virtually on my doorstep, I was happy to attend and and had a fabulous time. It was great to meet up with old friends and make some new ones too.
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Enjoying myself with fellow Thomas & Mercer authors, Mel Sherrat, Keith Houghton and Alan McDermott
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News: The Blackpool 'Wordpool' Festival

6/7/2015

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'Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside...'

Last Friday I took part in the 'Wordpool' Book Festival in Blackpool, organised by the town's libraries. I joined a panel discussing innovative ways to succeed in self-publishing.  It was a glorious day and great fun, although, sadly, over far too quickly. The event was well-organised, well-attended and the suggestions and comments made by fellow author, Dan Worsley,and myself seemed to be well-received.

Here's some photos from the event.
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With Dan Worsley (left) and our fab interviewer, John Simpson Wedge.
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Taking questions from the audience
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Review: 'The Seeker' by S. G. MacLean

4/7/2015

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'The Seeker'
by S. G. MacLean
A review

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I really enjoyed this book.  It’s a great mystery novel, cleverly constructed and set in a period of history little-explored by decent novelists:  Oliver Cromwell’s England. 

Shona MacLean brilliantly evokes the fear and suspicion of the uneasy era that followed the execution of the King, Charles Stuart.

In her capable hands, London itself becomes a character in the novel. Scarred by the civil war, the capital is a brooding, uneasy warren of intrigue and deception, seething with spies, soldiers, exiles and assassins. It’s a place where no-one really knows the business or allegiance of their neighbours, their guests or their lovers. Maclean takes us on a whirlwind tour of the seedy underbelly of the capital and the whispering corridors of the palaces in pursuit of the killer.

It took a little while for Maclean to introduce the half dozen or so characters who were all credible suspects in the murder of John Winter, but it was worth the wait for the action to start. Once Seeker was on the trail of the murderer, I was hooked. Her enigmatic protagonist is a delight, as were all of the characters - especially the women. Each one of the women sought freedom of some kind, and none of them passively accepted their allotted role as victims of the brutal, hypocritical and puritanical Commonwealth.

Maclean’s prose is also a delight. She writes confidently and there were some real literary gems scattered throughout the novel that made me gasp with their brilliance.  But the author never sacrificed the pace to her prose, and was firmly focused on her twisting plot and sub-plots.  

Maclean is a worthy recipient of the Crime Writer Association’s 2015 Endeavor Award for historical crime fiction. I thoroughly recommend this novel.


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