From a storm-tossed sea a man of God is cast on the shores of Britain and founds an early church on a miracle. The sea raiders are beaten back and the land forgets the hill forts. A fat merchant builds a great house in the Elizabethan style, yet it is a branch of the Meverall family that will populate the house down the centuries. Through civil wars and treachery , to piracy and plague, still the family name lives on. Yet on a night when Halley’s comet streaks the sky an evil pact causes an innocent life to be lost and a curse released that will decimate the family. Will love be able to redeem the last of the Merveralls, or will it take an innocent child to show the way?

Lively and inventive, this first novel romps through five hundred years of history from England to the trenches of France, to India and the fall of the Raj. But it’s the character’s that enchant with their very real hopes, dreams and that spark of magic present in every generation.

Halleswell Hall- a brief overview.

Those who have visited our web site will know that our first book, Halleswell Hall, is a joint production between myself and David. We have tried to give a flavour of the finished work by adding a teaser though I think maybe we didn’t do the book full justice by not giving a synopsis. I thought very hard about this, as the genre the book falls into is Historical fiction, and yet that really doesn’t do it justice. To many people the word “historical” might conjure up examples of boring old school textbooks, whilst our book is full of action, love, adventure and mystery along with a few philosophical  parallels to our modern world with its troubles and racial tensions. These were planned almost from the start of the book when our characters started to find voices of their own. We had originally planned a series of short stories that had a very old mansion house as the main focus, but we hadn’t expected to become so interested in what we learnt about different time periods.

The Internet has many good research sites which bring History to life in a totally unexpected way. We both learnt much more than we had envisioned and our characters had to experience some of that magic. For magic is a word that expresses what we both felt when our characters starting writing their own dilemmas into the book.

I don’t want to spoil the story but neither do I want our potential readers thinking,’ this isn’t my normal type of book.’

Halleswell is about an old house that has been built on the site of a much earlier hill fort that was there from the sixth century. The actual house is built in the Elizabethan era and goes on to bring the story up to the present time. The lives of its many inhabitants face the same joys, sadness and triumphs as any family today, the only difference lies with the expectations of the times. We both found ourselves thinking about what we would expect our characters to do in any given situation and I must say we had a lot of fun with some aspects of the story.

Putting aside the laws of our current times was great fun. We could write into our story things I am sure that many others would like to do for themselves.

So much of the book is escapism until the dark passages of wartime Britain and also India came into the narrative. The research affected us both so that suddenly our light-hearted romp became a deadly struggle for survival for all our characters.

I think it was at that point when we both knew we had crossed a line between writing for the fun of it and adding a message that we both shared.

To me these are some of the finest part of the book and I am constantly amazed at the way David dealt with some taboo subjects with the greatest of sensitivity.

The completion of the book and its subsequent publication has been an exciting time, but now we have found our writing voice we have several possible books in the pipeline. Our next one will be set in the very near future and will bring some startling revelations. We both hope you will share the journey with us and even start on books of your own.

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