Research Trip 2019: London to Holyhead to Dublin

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Sheri

The current ban on international travel makes me especially glad that I managed to visit the UK last year, although pleasure wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I made the trip. I’d been working on Into Thin Eire (aka John Pickett mystery #9), and I’d just finished the chase through England, Wales, and finally Ireland that makes up a good deal of the book. But when I read back through those chapters, I realized there was one big problem.

“This could be set anywhere in the world,” I complained to my husband, “and it wouldn’t matter! It needs detail to ground it in a particular place.” I looked online, but internet research has its limitations; I just wasn’t finding what I needed.

“Do you need to go?” my husband asked. “If you do, book a flight. I’ll see you when you get back.”

At Denver International Airport, waiting to board!

And so I did. Since my husband didn’t have enough vacation time to take a week off (we’d taken a South American cruise back in February, and he’d used most of it up on that trip), I went alone—my first solo trip out of the country. (Mom was convinced I was never coming back alive.) I’d bought a BritRail pass at the same time I’d booked my flight, and so after taking a day to recover from jet lag, I set out from my hotel to Euston Station. My objective: to follow the path of my characters, making notes on topographical changes along the way.

After boarding the train and finding a window seat with a good view, I pulled out a little notebook I’d bought for the trip. As the train traveled westward, I made notes on the landscape: the flat green fields of the Midlands, dotted with sheep and occasionally bisected by canals (the latter sometimes affording glimpses of brightly colored narrowboats) giving way to the steep slopes of Snowdonia, the peaks hidden beneath a blanket of clouds, until finally setting me down in Holyhead, Wales, where I’d booked a room for two nights at a quaint bed and breakfast called Witchingham.

Sheep seen from the window of the train.

Witchingham, the bed & breakfast where
I stayed in Holyhead, Wales.

Once in my room, I walked the short distance to the water and strolled along the Anglesey Coastal Path, stopping to eat dinner at the Yacht Club restaurant. From the water’s edge, I could see the ferries returning; this was the reason I’d come to Holyhead.

Boats near the Yacht Club.
Note the castle ruins in the background!

Early the next morning, I called for a taxi to take me to the port, and took the Swift ferry to Dublin. The name refers to Jonathan Swift, not to the boat’s speed, although that would fit, too: I made the Irish Sea crossing in just over three hours, whereas for John Pickett and his traveling companions, even a smooth crossing would have been seventeen hours or more. The boat itself was like a small cruise ship, with a buffet brunch included in the fare, along with comfortable seats and big picture windows along the bow and sides. But I wasn’t the only person making a work-related trip: one entire deck was reserved for commercial trucks (lorries), with lounges set aside specifically for their drivers.

When we arrived in Dublin, I realized that in one instance, at least, John Pickett would have had the advantage over me: his packet sailed right up the River Liffey into the heart of Dublin, whereas my ferry docked along a rather nondescript commercial waterfront, from which we walk-on passengers had to take a bus into the city proper. After a day in Dublin, it was back to the ferry for the return trip, arriving in Holyhead just after midnight. (And me, with my north-Alabama/Appalachian-foothills accent trying to communicate by telephone with a Welsh taxi driver was the only real problem I had on the whole trip!)

In the morning, I took the train back to London for my next adventure—mudlarking along the Thames foreshore! But that’s a subject for another blog . . .

An interview with audiobook narrator Joel Froomkin

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Sheri

Those of you who have been listening to the audio versions of the John Pickett books may have been wondering about the man behind John Pickett’s voice. (He’s actually the man behind Julia’s voice too, as well as Mr. Colquhoun’s and all other other characters.) I’m pleased to give you this glimpse “behind the scenes” at award-winning audiobook narrator Joel Froomkin!

SCS: Tell me a little about your background. How much of your voice work is natural talent, and how much is theatrical training?

JF: Well, I grew up in Bermuda, which is a British colony, and that kind of forged the way for me to be a little bit of a dialect freak. I went to a British school where my teachers were from all over the UK. So I grew up absorbing all these different sounds without even being conscious of it. My best friend was Scottish, my “adopted” grandparents were English, and I lived in London for three years. So I was lucky, growing up around all these sounds AND having American parents. In terms of training, I did my undergrad in performance at USC, and then my MFA in directing—which is actually ideal for audiobooks, because you are usually your own director. Being able to listen with an objective ear and say to yourself, “Nope, that doesn’t sound truthful” is a real help. So to answer your question, I think I ended up with a really unique combination of “nature” and “nurture” that allows me to tackle unique projects as a narrator.

SCS: What do you look for when choosing a project to audition for? What appeals to you?

JF: It really depends. But I get really excited about things that allow me to play with a lot of characters and dialects. I think that’s because my passion for audiobooks came from listening to Roy Dotrice and Jim Dale, who really create an entire cast of voices. Personally, I love cozy mysteries (M. C. Beaton and Alexander McCall Smith are my favs), so working in that genre is a real treat. John Pickett’s adventures let me enjoy both of those things. I’d love to do fantasy as well, because it allows so much latitude with vocal characterization. Because of my background, I’m often hired to do books that feature American AND British characters. People who have listened to only my British books get really confused when they hear one of my American titles!

SCS: After we contracted to do the John Pickett mysteries, you had me send you a spreadsheet listing every speaking character, along with each character’s age, occupation/social class, three words describing them—and one unexpected item. Can you tell my readers what that was, and why you find it helpful in creating a voice?

JF: It’s important to me to try and get a real sense of what was in the author’s imagination. I’ve found authors tend to think of their characters more visually than vocally—so I have a series of questions that helps me focus in on the aspect that most concerns me.

I ask them the age of the character; very often, the minor characters—servants, etc.—are not really given much detail—and I can interpret them as 86 years old and find out three books later that the author refers to them as 22! The level of education is important—especially for British material, where dialects are very much tied to level of class. I need to know if they grew up in any specific region, and whether any other characters in the book were also raised there, because they will share sounds.

I ask if there is a particular celebrity the author imagines would play the character in a movie. About half the time, these suggestions aren’t useful, because the author is thinking visually, not vocally—so they will tell me that Chris Pratt would be a character in a British Victorian story. That doesn’t help. But when they are able to tap into the voice type, knowing that someone sounds like Eddie Redmayne vs. Sean Bean, that is helpful.

The last thing, which actually is the most helpful, is what kind of animal they think the character would be—kind of like what is their Patronus. LOL. Knowing an author imagines a character is a weasel vs. a toad or a Persian cat vs. a bear is a huge help to find their voice.

SCS: Okay, so I’ve sent you the character spreadsheet and the book manuscript. What’s next for you? Walk me through your process.

Then I read the book, with the author’s character sheet right by my side. It’s important to know the arc of the story and the characters before I start—particularly with a mystery, because I have to be careful not to telegraph the ending by making the murderer too obvious. Mysteries are also very tricky because there are often “mysterious voices” that are overheard, or anonymous telephone calls (in more modern material). Those are always really tricky to figure out how to voice so the listener doesn’t identify the bad guy!

SCS: Let’s talk for a minute about the John Pickett books. What part of the books presents the greatest challenge for you? What part do you find the most enjoyable?

JF: I think getting to voice the prequel, Pickpocket’s Apprentice, was a huge help to me. [SCS: Joel also won an Earphones Award from AudioFile for his work on this book, which I suspect increased his affection for it exponentially!] It meant that we have been able to chart his growth in education and his ability to assimilate into a class above his station. He still speaks in what we would call “mockney”—certainly not BBC English. But when he is speaking with servants, his dialect shifts to seem more relatable to them. When he is with the upper classes, he tries not to drop consonants or use glottal stops. Very often, historical writers make the mistake of assuming that lower-class people can just “pretend” to have an upper-class sound. But if that were the case, there would be no reason for My Fair Lady to exist—Eliza Doolittle wouldn’t have needed Henry Higgins! So we’ve found a way to progress John Pickett that I really enjoy. I love the character—in my head, I’m playing Eddie Redmayne playing John Pickett. For some reason, when I’m voicing Lady Fieldhurst, I always think of a young Eva Green.

Thanks so much! I look forward to working with you on the other books in the series. Fun things in store include a whole family of Scottish characters (in Family Plot, Book 3), John singing “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” while pretending to be drunk (Waiting Game, another John Pickett novella, Book 4.5), and of course the romantic resolution (Too Hot to Handel, Book 5). I can’t wait to hear what you do with them!

(If you’d like to hear a sample of Joel’s work, here’s a short excerpt from A Dead Bore. Enjoy!)

USA Today HEA interview

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Sheri

In spring of 2016, I had the good fortune to be featured on USA Today’s HEA blog in an article on historical mystery series with strong romantic elements! Since there were eight authors referenced in the article, everyone’s interview had to be abbreviated due to space constraints. I’ve included my entire interview below; if you’d like to read the HEA blog entry (I’ve been told it was one of the most popular they’ve ever done, and was shared more than 1,400 times!), you can read it here

1) Did you plan from the start to include the romantic element in your book or series, or did it evolve in the writing of the stories? If the former, why? If the latter, at what point did you realize this element would be significant to the book/series?
Yes, the romance was a big part of the series from the very beginning. I’d had success with “across the tracks” romance in my self-published Regency romance The Weaver Takes a Wife, so when I got ready to develop a mystery series, I decided to go back to that particular well, in this case pairing a young and inexperienced (in more ways than one) Bow Street Runner with the widowed viscountess who is his chief suspect in the murder of her husband (Book 1, In Milady’s Chamber). I knew from the first that I was asking readers to suspend a great deal of disbelief in accepting that a Bow Street Runner, even a young and handsome one, might become romantically involved with an aristocratic lady. In fact, I felt this scenario was well-suited for a series, as it would allow for the gradual development of a relationship that might be difficult to pull off in a single title.

2) Does the romantic element develop over several books or is it strong from the start?
It seems a bit sacrilegious to mention my own books in the same sentence as Dorothy L. Sayers, but at the risk of sounding presumptuous, the relationship between Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane was my model, as far as developing the romance goes. In the first book, the attraction is all on John Pickett’s side. Julia, Lady Fieldhurst is far more concerned with saving her neck from the gallows, but even aside from that, a woman of her class would never think of a man of his station in those terms. It was interesting to see reviewers’ response to this one-sided attachment. One reviewer said, “If you’re looking for a romance, you won’t find it here,” while another said, “The romantic tension crackles, because absolutely nothing happens”!

3) What is the relationship between the protagonist and the significant other, and the role of the significant other in the story? (Are they partner sleuths, or is the “other”, while involved in the story, not one of the primary investigators? If you are writing a series, does your protagonist have only one significant other, or are there a series of them?)
In the first book, he was investigating her husband’s murder, and she was the primary suspect. In the later books, they keep running into each other—sometimes coincidentally, other times not. Because of her social position, she can go places that he can’t, and ferret out information from people who might refuse to talk to him. The most recent book, Dinner Most Deadly, found them at cross purposes for the first time, with Julia reluctantly agreeing to protect her best friend’s estranged husband, who is a suspect in the case Pickett is investigating. And it makes her miserable, which goes a long way toward making her realize just how important he has become in her life.

4) If you are writing/have written a series, how is the romantic element maintained after the couple marry or otherwise have a meeting of the minds on their relationship?
I don’t want to give away too much detail here, because the book that resolves the relationship has not yet been published. Suffice it to say that I’d expected the series to end once that resolution came, but after writing that book, I realized that the daily challenges of making such an unequal match work offered plenty of opportunity for conflict—and comedy—that deserved to be explored.

5) Do you think the romantic element is important to the marketing of your books? Is it featured, by either you or your publisher, in the marketing materials? If not, do you know why?
I think it’s very important—in fact, I doubt if there’s a single person who reads my books strictly for the mystery! While my publisher markets the John Pickett series as part of its mystery line, I write my own copy for the cover flap, and I make sure to mention the issues within the developing relationship as well as the mystery. I also promote it on romance review websites, and next month I’ll be attending the Romantic Times conference for the first time.

6) There are historical romances with strong suspense of mystery plots. How are those different from the books that you write?
The most obvious difference is the fact that my series follows the same couple over a number of books—and that, four books into the series, the romance is still unresolved and unconsummated. I also think my books contain more humor than the historical romances with mystery or suspense elements, which seem to deal with darker themes and/or tortured characters. I don’t do tortured characters; John Pickett is rather like a Regency “Chuck” (from the titular character of the TV series, portrayed by Zachary Levi) in that he’s brilliant but utterly lacking in self-confidence.

An Interview with Gary Corby

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Sheri

Since winning a copy of his fourth book, The Marathon Conspiracy, in a Goodreads giveaway, I’ve become a serious fangirl of Australian author Gary Corby, whose series of mysteries set in ancient Greece are published by Soho Press. I sent him a message via Goodreads asking for an interview, and he was gracious enough to grant it.

From the detailed Author’s Notes at the end of each of your books, I get the impression that you were knowledgeable about Greek history long before you started writing your novels. Am I right? Tell me a little about your background.

You’re right. I was reading history even as a teenager — mostly ancient Greek and Roman. But also mediaeval and WW2. That was just for fun. By training I’m a mathematician, weird as that may sound. These days I’m a full time writer of murder mysteries.

Classical Greece was an easy choice, when I decided to write a historical mystery. To start with, I already knew a lot about the period. Or I thought I did. It’s one thing to know about the wars, the great art, and the geopolitics. It’s another thing to know how the drains work! Also how houses were built, what people ate, how they wore their hair, etc. Now I know all that stuff, too.

I first traveled about Greece, Turkey and the Aegean when I was in my early twenties. Little did I know then that one day I’d be writing about the place. But that local knowledge helps with descriptions.

Mysteries are so series-oriented that it’s important to create characters that we, as writers, won’t get tired of writing about, and that readers won’t get tired of reading about. I can assure you that you’ve accomplished the latter! Can you tell me a little about how you created Nicolaos?

Poor Nico! He’s the dumbest guy in the room.

At the time Nico’s alive and detecting, there are about a dozen world-class geniuses walking around Athens. There’s Pericles the famous statesman; Socrates the world’s greatest philosopher, but at this point he’s only twelve years old; Diotima the priestess-philosopher; Aspasia the brilliant speech writer; Hippocrates the Father of Medicine; the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides; Herodotus the Father of History…the list goes on.

Even Sherlock Holmes would struggle against this lot. It meant that my detective couldn’t be the smartest guy in the room. Since he couldn’t be the smartest, he had to be the dumbest.

So Nico’s little brother is a genius. His girlfriend is a genius. His boss is a genius. But Nico’s the one expected to solve all the puzzles.

What about Diotima, Socrates, and the other real-life characters? Where does the historical figure end and the fictional portrayal begin?

It varies with the character. Socrates is easily the best documented person from that entire century. There are good descriptions of his demeanour, his family, lists of his friends, where he lived, very long reports of his dialogues. There’s even a first-hand account of his actions during a for-real battle.

Diotima on the other hand only gets mentioned in one place. But if you can only get mentioned once in history, Plato’s Symposium is a good choice. Her character I had to create. Her intelligence was obviously top notch for her to have taught philosophy to Socrates, and for him to have been grateful for it. She heads the most powerful student-teacher chain in history. Diotima taught Socrates. Socrates taught Plato. Plato taught Aristotle. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered the world.

You can pull all sorts of enlightening tidbits from recorded history. I have Pericles as being very stingy with his money, for example. That’s because there’s a surviving court case in which it emerged that he underpaid his own son.

Many of the people who read my blog are writers themselves, who know that anything can happen during a speaking engagement—especially when you’re talking to kids! Would you please share with them your experiences when speaking at your daughter’s school (which you describe at the end of The Marathon Conspiracy), and how that experience gave you unexpected insight into Diotima’s character? Besides being a charming story in itself, it demonstrates how anything and everything becomes grist for the writer’s mill!

It was the custom at the time that, when a girl came of age, she dedicated her toys to the goddess Artemis. It was a coming of age rite.

I once gave a talk at my daughters’ school about ancient Greece, where I described the lives of girls in classical times. I talked about how they wore their hair, what their clothes looked like, how school worked, etc. Then I mentioned the dedication of the toys.

The girls were shocked. Absolutely stunned.

It was instantly clear to me that my heroine Diotima would have done something about this rule. To find out what she did, you’ll have to read the book!

From your Author’s Notes (which, by the way, I enjoy as much as I do the novels!), I suspect you’ve made at least one trip to Greece, Ephesus, etc. to research your books. My husband and I are planning a Mediterranean trip in the next few years. What locations do you suggest I and other literary-minded travelers might want to check out that might add to our enjoyment of the novels?

For The Pericles Commission, you definitely want to visit Athens. I know of people who’ve taken The Pericles Commission with them, to find the places. The first murder scene is on an important rock outcrop beside the Acropolis, a place called the Areopagus. You can easily find the spot where my first victim dies, and where Nico was standing when it happened. (I plotted this out myself.) Then go up to the Acropolis. To the north you’ll see the agora, which Nico accidentally destroys in the book. Also the Panathenaic Way which is the major connecting road. To the south is the road to Piraeus, on which Nico has a knife fight in a later book. If you look straight down from the Acropolis you’ll see the Theater of Dionysos, which is the setting for the next book, Death ex Machina.

For The Ionia Sanction, visit the magnificent ruins at Ephesus, which these days is on the west coast of Turkey. This is the same Ephesus that appears in the Bible (think Paul’s epistles to the Ephesians). But in classical times it was a major port city. The theater, the marketplace, the road to the wharves, the ancient brothel, Marble Road where Nico and Diotima have a flaming row…all those places are there to be seen.

Sacred Games is set at the ancient Olympics. Go straight to Olympia!

The Marathon Conspiracy is mostly set at a temple sanctuary at a place called Brauron in the ancient language, and Vravona in modern Greek. The sanctuary and temple is a remarkably small area, but it was the world’s first official school for girls. If you travel up the coast road from there you’ll come to the plain of Marathon, where they fought what was probably the most important battle in history.

What’s next for Nico and Diotima? When can we look forward to reading about their next adventure?

The book scheduled for next year is already written. It’s called Death ex Machina and will be a rather theatrical mystery.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with readers or potential readers? Here’s your chance!

People haven’t changed over thousands of years. The same desires and fears that drive us today, greed, lust, ambition, love…those are what drove people two thousand five hundred years ago. All that’s changed is the setting!

Thanks, Gary!

Note to my readers: If you haven’t read Gary’s books yet, I urge you to do so! And I strongly suggest that you start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with The Pericles Commission, so you can follow the relationship between Nico and Diotima from the very beginning. You’ll love Nico, you’ll laugh out loud, and you might just learn something about Greek history.