A MOTIF OF SEASON BY EDWARD GLOVER - READ THE PROLOGUE & WIN A COPY

Happy holidays, everyone! Today I've got a great bookish gift for you: the chance to win a very good historical novel,  A Motif of Season by Edward Glover, and the possibility to read its catching prologue.  If you liked Birdsong or Parade's End (either the novels or theirTV adaptations)  or The Crimson Field, you'll love this book! 

The novel is part of a saga but can be read as a stand alone book. Set in the latter half of the 19th century, A Motif of Seasons tells the stories of two powerful European families – the von Deppes in Germany and theWhitfields in England – still locked in an ancient rivalry, triggered by an ancestral union. The unexpected marriage in 1766 between the beautiful, capricious and musically accomplished young Arabella Whitfield and the older Prussian military officer Count Carl Manfred von Deppe has left a legacy of distrust and prejudice.

Against the backdrop of a widening and destructive gulf between England and Germany, A Motif of Seasons follows three women – Victoria Elise von Böhm, Alice Bartlett and Arabella von Eisenwald – kindred spirits of the feisty Arabella, who share her musical talent and her passion for life. The three women find love, uncover family secrets locked away in an 18th-century music book and define their individuality in a patriarchal landscape of social straitjackets and dictated norms. But the past proves a formidable opponent.

BOOK UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT - EDWARD GLOVER, A MOTIF OF SEASON

“Reading them for the first time, Victoria was struck by the written words: I will do what people want but only as I want it to be. They summarised pithily her own approach to life.”

A Motif of Seasons: The Story

Overshadowing the social games and vindictive gossip of the European elite, a dark and threatening cloud steadily draws across Europe. On 28th June 1914 an Austro-Hungarian archduke is assassinated and the mounting tension finally snaps. War is declared and the lives of two families will be changed forever.

Set in the latter half of the 19th century, A Motif of Seasons tells the stories of two powerful European families – the von Deppes in Germany and theWhitfields in England – still locked in an ancient rivalry, triggered by an ancestral union. The unexpected marriage in 1766 between the beautiful, capricious and musically accomplished young Arabella Whitfield and the older Prussian military officer Count Carl Manfred von Deppe has left a legacy of distrust and prejudice.

Against the backdrop of a widening and destructive gulf between England and Germany, A Motif of Seasons follows three women – Victoria Elise von Böhm, Alice Bartlett and Arabella von Eisenwald – kindred spirits of the feisty Arabella, who share her musical talent and her passion for life. The three women find love, uncover family secrets locked away in an 18th-century music book and define their individuality in a patriarchal landscape of social straitjackets and dictated norms. But the past proves a formidable opponent.

With tales of hidden illegitimate children, sensual affairs and young soldiers braving the horrors of First World War battlefields, A Motif of Seasons is an adventurous, gripping and touching epic about family, love and social freedom.

GIORGIA HILL, AUTHOR OF "WHILE I WAS WAITING": WHAT COMES FIRST? THE STORY OR THE RESEARCH?

Tricky – in so many ways. If you write you have to do some, even if you’re following the well-worn adage, ‘write what you know.’ If you write fiction with any kind of historical content, then you have to do some.

What comes first? The story, or the research?

In my case, it’s the story.

Most of the time.

I write a very basic, very rough first draft and then research what I need to make it live - to make it feel authentic. I was asked recently at a writers’ event how I made my writing feel of the period it’s set in. I couldn’t really reply. I suspect the questioner wanted an easy solution, or a pat answer. Sadly, it involves a lot of reading, a lot of leg-work and a lot of browsing on the internet. There’s no short-cut. It helps, of course, if you have some prior knowledge and an interest in the period in which the book is set. I believe you also have to love that time in history. To use an over-used phrase, it must be a passion.

When writing While I Was Waiting, which is partly set during World War 1, certain things resonated. A visit to a nearby stately home set up an ‘experience room’ based around the time the three sons of the house were fighting at the front. On the mantle-piece was a photograph. They were posed in front of the house, sitting on their glossy horses, looking impossibly glamorous and waiting for the hunt to begin. Horses and men both full of vigour and energy. Four short years later all three brothers were dead, killed in action, in service of their country. That photograph haunted me for a long time and I included a similar experience in the book.

AT THE CINEMA - TORNERANNO I PRATI - WWI SEEN BY ERMANNO OLMI

Why this movie now? Not only to join the celebrations of  WWI 100th anniversary. At  83, one of the greatest contemporary Italian directors, Ermanno Olmi,  makes up his mind to direct a new  “useful” movie, committed and lyrical at the same time, which is a visual poem against all and any war. In “Torneranno i prati”, each frame is poetic imagery and each line is true poetry wrapped in simple, direct words. 

War is absurd and terrifying. This is something Olmi has always been convinced of, since he and his brother were made the addressees of painful war tales by their own father, a veteran from WWI, who had experienced the trenches in first person.

REMEMBERING SIGFRIED SASSOON AND HIS PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR BY GUEST BLOGGER ROSS BARNETT

"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination

BRINGING THE PAST BACK TO LIFE - AUTHOR INTERVIEW: LARRY HEWITT, THE JUNO LETTERS SERIES

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere, Larry. It’s a pleasure and an honour to have you as my very special guest on FLY HIGH!

This is my first question for you. I know you love writing historical fiction, especially stories set during WWII.  Do you think we can learn the truth about our past and roots reading historical novels more than or as well as researching on documents?

Reading a story set in a historical context can help stimulate interest in historical events, and further our understanding of our own path through the present.  This places an unusual duty on the author.  The context within which your story takes places must be historically accurate - balanced against the need to simplify overly complex interactions and create a story people will read and enjoy.  I research my novels as if I were writing a “real” history.  I write the context as accurately as possible, and then insert my characters into lessor known pieces of that history to create a plausible story.  Good historical fiction is a challenge and a joy.