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Author Karen uncovers shocking family secret

18/11/2011

'Author Karen uncovers shocking family secret'

And we've had another one...

This time it is the Morpeth Herald who have featured Catching the Eagle.

This is great news and - we believe - prompted an independent bookseller to contact my publisher for copies of the novel. It is a good article, similar to the one published by the Hexham Courant last Friday. This is hardly surprising because both newspapers used the emailed information and photos taken from my 'press pack' to write the features. All that hard work preparing the press pack last summer has paid off. If anyone is curious about what I used in my press pack, here is a list:

Photo of the book cover
Photo of me
Photo of Kirkley Hall
Press release
Background information
An extract from The Newcastle Courant September 1810
A family tree
The blurb for the novel
A synopsis of the story
Details of both the Teesside and the Northumberland book launches

Although this system obviously works extremely well, the slightly irking thing about it is that the newspapers can just lift the information I have sent them and publish - without telling us.

Thank you to David Walker in Ponteland, cousin of my friend Christine, for alerting us to the fact that the Morpeth Herald had published the above article. (Otherwise we would never have known!)

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Robbery is Karen’s inspiration

11/11/2011

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Robbery is Karen’s inspiration...

Karen Charlton with 'Catching the Eagle.'

From the Hexham Courant, Friday November 11th 2011 By Helen Compson.

Robbery is Karen’s inspiration

A convict fell out of a teacher’s family tree when a spot of genealogical research revisited a crime that split the community of Ponteland.

Teesside teacher Karen Charlton has now used the true story of the biggest robbery Northumberland had ever known—during the heyday of Kirkley Hall—as the basis for her first historical novel.

She has gathered so much information about the arrest, and subsequent trial of he husband’s ancestor, impoverished farm labourer, Jamie Charlton, along with the unpopular steward of Kirkley Hall, Michael Aynsley, that Catching the Eagle is but the first book of a planned trilogy.

It begins with the day in April 1809 that £1,157 in rent money gathered from the estate was stolen.

One Stephen Lavender, a principal officer with the Bow Street’s magistrates court in London, was dispatched North to investigate.

But far from solving the crime, the ensuing miscarriage of justice caused a public outcry.

‘In 2004 we were startled to discover that we had a Regency convict in the family tree.’ said Karen.

Not only that but he was a criminal with a very dodgy conviction. I had always wanted to write historical novels and now the perfect plot had just landed in my lap.’

Just like those other great investigative novels of recent times—Julian Barnes’ Arthur & George and Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher--Catching the Eagle holds up the true story of a 19th century crime for analysis.

What had begun as a hobby for the Charlton family quickly turned into a quest as they trawled through the offerings of numerous archives.

The novel spans a period of two years from April 1809 to June 1811, and the story is told from the viewpoint of Jamies’ brother, William, while desperately trying to save him from the gallows.

Catching the Eagle, the first of The Regency Reivers trilogy published by Knox Robinson Publishers, will be on the book shelves by December 8th.

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Who were the 'Border Reivers?'

8/11/2011

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Who were the 'Border Reivers?'

Since choosing the title 'The Regency Reivers' for my first series of historical novels, I have frequently been asked: 'Who were the Reivers?'

‘Reive’ is an early English word meaning "to rob",

Border Reivers were raiders along the Anglo–Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. During this time, England and Scotland were frequently at war and the area was lawless, godless and often decimated by opposing armies.

A tough area breeds tough people. The families who lived there – on both sides of the border – grouped together in clans for protection and survival. Loyalty to a feeble or distant monarch or reliance on the effectiveness of the law, were not good survival strategies for the people of the borders. Instead, they sought security through their own strength and cunning and set out in large mobs to raid other families. ‘Reiving’ - raiding for cattle and sheep (and whatever else which could be transported) was the only way to survive and it became an established way of life, a profession, which was regarded with no discredit amongst the Borderers. The Reivers moved only at night, taking advantage of their intimate knowledge of the remote and rugged terrain, to spirit away their ill-gotten plunder.

Border Reivers

As George MacDonald Fraser says in The Steel Bonnets, ‘they lived by despoiling each other’… ‘It was a time when the great border tribes, both English and Scottish, feuded continuously amongst themselves, when robbery and blackmail, were everyday professions, when raiding, arson, kidnapping, murder and extortion were an important part of the social system.’

Their heyday was perhaps in the last hundred years of their existence, during the time of the Stuart Kings in Scotland and the Tudor Dynasty in England.

The attitudes of the English and Scottish governments towards the border clans alternated between indulgence and encouragement. Secure in their rule in the majority of the two countries, the authorities in England and Scotland were happy to let the Reivers battle it out for supremacy in the narrow hill country between the two nations. These fierce families served as the first line of defence against invasion and it suited authorities to have gangs of outlaws harassing the enemy on the border. However, the royalty of both countries would only travel through the region with a large and heavily armed escort. Even they were afraid of the Reivers.

As soldiers, the Border Reivers were considered among the finest light cavalry in all of Europe; they were outstanding horsemen. Living on the frontier between two warring nations sharpened their soldiering skills. Many worked as mercenaries abroad.

Of course, the notion of Scottish Clans is now legendary around the world – mostly thanks to Sir Walter Scott and his ballads. What is not so well known, perhaps, is that on the English side of the border there were also large, unruly English clans like the Charltons, the Armstrongs, the Milburns, the Robsons, the Fenwicks and the Dodds.

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Author Karen uncovers shocking family secret

'Author Karen uncovers shocking family secret'

Robbery is Karen’s inspiration

Robbery is Karen’s inspiration...

Who were the 'Border Reivers?'

Who were the 'Border Reivers?'

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