Ann Victoria Roberts's Blog

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Confession time – I’ve been writing for years and have only just begun to understand the whys and wherefores of literary boxes. And with a new novel just out, I find myself thinking again about readers and how they find the books they like.

The dictionary defines genre as a matter of style in art or literature, with certain characteristics. In fiction, it’s a matter of content. Is it a crime story or a romance, contemporary or historical, realistic or fantasy? Or could it be ‘literary fiction’? In other words, a well-written, character-driven tale, often more thought-provoking than happy-ever-after. The latter, it must be said, is not a happy label, as readers tend to view it as the boring option.

A shame really, as the English novel, as we know it, began in the 18th century with authors like Daniel Defoe and Anne Radcliffe, and then swept into the 19th with writers as diverse as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters and Thomas Hardy. Towards the end of that century, the list grows hugely. Not merely with British writers, but publications of bestselling novels from abroad.

Novelists at that time were not concerned with genre – they wrote about life as they saw it. Rich tapestries of time and place and character – adventures, mysteries and social comment, all wrapped up in page-turning prose. All now classified as literary fiction.

Having said that, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes became so popular, detective fiction quickly became the rage – so perhaps we can blame him for starting this thing called genre?

Neat labelling makes marketing easier, both for publishers and bookshop owners, trying to place books on the right shelves. For readers, there is also comfort in knowing what to expect – but not everyone wants a predictable romance or old-style detective mystery.

Nowadays, with independent publishing and internet bookstores, mixed and cross-genre novels are commonplace. More and more writers are producing this kind of novel – and the best ones have a faithful following. Advice says, ‘write the novel you want to read,’ but as I know from experience, refusing to conform can be a gamble.

When I first started writing – way back in the last century – I knew nothing about genre. My first novel was turned down by everyone I approached. The best response praised the quality of writing, but said it would be hard to place because it fell between the two stools of romantic and general fiction. I understood the comment, but still didn’t ‘get it’.

Later, I began the novel I’d always wanted to write. One I’d been putting off for years, largely due to the usual advice to avoid historical fiction and, ‘Write what you know…’ As it turned out, I knew far more than I realised, particularly about the 19th century.

Looking back, it seems the lives of real people have been the inspiration for much of my work – leading to plots that are driven less by dramatic events, and more by the twists and turns of everyday life. As a writer, I like to explore the effects of past and present on my characters, and discover why they react in certain ways – and where those reactions lead them.

Almost by default – or rather, by following my instincts – I seem to have conformed to advice being given to mixed-genre authors today. They say that whichever style of fiction you feel easiest with – be it paranormal or murder mystery – take that as the driving force to carry the other elements of the story.

In my case, it seems to be ‘romance’ – the love story is in the driving seat. The other elements – of history, setting, character and plot – are the passengers providing the chat, the scenery, the unfolding drama.

Clearly, I’ve never written to a template, and I’m not a prolific writer. What might take six months for one author, takes me at least a couple of years, so I need to feel passionately about a story before I commit. Good in one sense – it means taking on a fresh, enjoyable challenge each time – but that can be difficult for traditional publishers to handle. And impossible for my readers to predict!

My new novel, One Night, Two Lives, is different again. It has a more modern style and setting, and only two main characters. But like my previous ones, this novel explores the different facets of love. And as the 60-year-old Suzie Wallis knows well, there’s more to love than hearts and flowers. Her story takes the reader back and forth from 2004 to events in the mid-1960s, a period now classified as ‘history’. But this is not an historical novel, and it’s not a romance – nor is it a crime novel, although one might argue that there’s a crime at the heart of it.

Mulling over the question of genre and how to describe this new novel, I was relieved to find that my publishers have made the decision for me. ‘One Night, Two Lives’, is classified as ‘contemporary fiction’.

So, having finally made the mainstream, I’m giving three cheers! I hope this new book will appeal to previous fans, but I’d like to think that younger women will read it too. It’s a window on the past – on what life was like before they got the freedom to choose.

One Night, Two Lives, is currently available as an ebook from Amazon, Apple, and Google Play. It will be out in paperback within the next few weeks.

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Nowadays we call it Feminism, but half a century ago, the tag was Women’s Lib – the first great feminist movement since women fought for the right to vote.
It grew in the late 1960s from local women’s support groups, and by early 1970, after a conference in Oxford, petitions and a march to Parliament were organised. Demands were made for equal opportunities; equal pay for equal jobs; free contraception and abortion on demand – and free 24-hour nurseries.
The UK government began to listen. But despite the Equal Pay Act, passed in late 1970, and the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, women are still fighting, although perhaps not quite for the same things. I don’t recall free 24-hour nurseries being mentioned recently, but nowadays contraceptive pills and devices are free on prescription to most people in the UK.
The Pill, as we know it, became available to married women from the early 1960s, but not to unmarried women before 1967 – which was when abortion also became legal. Except for certain religious communities, the availability of free contraception and abortion was truly liberating. The anxiety of sex leading to more children – especially unwanted children – had been a problem for women since the world began.
For generations, sex had been a dirty word, rarely discussed except in private. But these changes to the law brought the subject into the open, helping to banish the idea that it was sinful to bear a child without a father’s name. More importantly, it helped remove the tarnish of illegitimacy from the children of single mothers.
By the 1980s, we’d been through the decade of ‘Make Love Not War’ – hippies were regarded as eccentrics rather than revolutionaries, and people were living together openly. What’s more, ordinary women were finding their voices and speaking up for themselves, rather than deferring to the men in their lives.
Personally, I was delighted. For me, marriage to a seafarer meant that I had to be independent anyway. I had to make decisions and manage both home, children and household finances without constant reference to the man in my life. On one occasion, I recall being addressed as, ‘Mrs Captain,’ by a young Merchant Navy officer. I don’t know what experience he’d had aboard ships in the past, but I put him straight. ‘I’m not Mrs Captain,’ I said, ‘I’m Ann.’
In the same spirit, with two young children at home, and my husband at sea for several months at a time, I began writing a novel based on a family diary. Needing to know more about these people, I started checking my family history.
This was before the internet, so it was less straightforward than it is today. But imagine my astonishment when I discovered that on one side, two generations – one following the other – had been single women with children. They were lucky not to end up in the local workhouse – the fate of most unmarried mothers in the 19thC.
In the earlier generation, two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, were part of a wealthy family which had lost everything through a failed business venture. As fans of Jane Austen will appreciate, for these educated but penniless women, the chances of marriage to a man of equal status were slim. So, in the 1850s, the real Elliott sisters branched out alone. They left Lincolnshire and went into business, running a Temperance Hotel in a prime position in York.
They were a pair of respectable business women – but astonishingly, between 1854 and 1870, these two sisters had four children. As was common in those days, the children appear to have been ‘farmed out’, brought up by foster parents until they were old enough to join their real mothers, and to pass as nephew and nieces.
Discovering their background changed my entire approach to the novel. What had been planned as an historical romance set in 1890s York, emerged as a much grittier portrait of a family with secrets. Women forced to hide the truth for fear of public condemnation and potential failure of both business and income.
This aspect gave me an insight into their characters, and good reasons for what happened later. It’s also worth noting that for these fatherless children, the stigma of illegitimacy could blight their chances of marriage into a ‘respectable’ family.
After the book was first published, readers responded with stories of their own about family crises and unwed mothers. It seems the plight of these 19thC women and their determination to succeed despite the odds, was not unusual.
Louisa Elliott was originally published in 1989, and reissued in 2014. Between times I’ve written five very different novels, but a while ago the TV programme, Long Lost Family, set me thinking about the women of the early 1960s, the ones who dipped out on Women’s Lib by just a few years.
Times had changed since Louisa Elliott’s day – there had been two world wars for a start – but the old attitudes clung on, particularly in the provinces. Young women were expected to be virgins when they married, and those who became pregnant without marriage had little choice but to give up their children for adoption.
Long Lost Family seeks to reunite people, but doesn’t tell the story behind the story. I wanted to know what it was like for those women, and with the #MeToo movement making headlines, a plot began to take shape.
In One Night, Two Lives – due to be published in September – Suzie Wallis has overcome the tragedies of her youth. She’s been married, had children, managed a successful business, and feels she’s come to terms with her life as a widow. But when the man who fathered her first child appears in her life, she’s not only faced with the past, but forced into making decisions.
Suzie gave up her son for adoption forty years ago – if she agrees to search for him now, what will she find?

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Fellow-writers will recognise the question – it’s often the first thing a stranger asks on being introduced.
I say, ‘Historical novels,’ but advice to authors instructs us to expand on that: ‘Tell people about your book and the benefits it can bestow – what it will do for them.’
Immediately my mind goes blank. My books aren’t soap powder, or the latest super-smooth car. Completing a novel may be as pleasurable as chocolate to me, but people have different tastes, and my taste is for something less sweet but more satisfying.
I’m enthusiastic about the story, the characters, and the research I’ve been doing – but the benefits?
My books are mostly about love in different forms, but they don’t have templates and refuse to sit comfortably in ‘Romance’. Even though my first novel, Louisa Elliott, has strong romantic elements, the characters I write about are more human than perfect.
Perhaps that’s owing to youthful reading matter – 19thC tales of families and friends, unrequited love and unwise affairs. About the way we as humans make mistakes; the way society imposes its judgements.
As adults under pressure, sometimes all we need is chewing gum for the mind. It’s tempting to buy the next book in a series because we’ve come to know and love the characters. But in trying to establish what leaves its mark – be it thriller, murder mystery, historical novel or literary gem – I’ve reached the conclusion that honesty speaks loudest. No matter how fantastic the plot, a novel with believable characters leaves an impression. Faults and failings, doubts and difficulties, come alive on the page. We may not agree with the outcome, but if the author has presented it well, we don’t forget the story or the characters.
I like to feel I’ve learned something from a novel – I hope readers learn something from mine. Times and attitudes change, while culture shapes the way we think – but the basic challenges remain.
In the past, research has taken me from Louisa Elliott’s York and Dublin in the 1890s, to the era of WW1 in Liam’s Story. Living in Whitby led to the novel, Moon Rising, and an exciting discovery about Bram Stoker’s time there. A chance encounter resulted in The Master’s Tale, and an imagined voyage aboard the Titanic, where Captain Smith reflects on the nature of time and coincidence.
As a writer, I veer towards the darker side, the tensions between men and women, the way different aspects of one person – and different views of one event – make up a three-dimensional whole.
Perhaps no more so than in my recently completed novel, One Night, Two Lives, now awaiting publication. In the modern day, Suzie is a designer, while James is now an Anglican priest. On the surface, they have little in common, but forty years ago, in a single, drunken encounter, they created a child. Research has taken me – and my characters – from rural Yorkshire to the tragic world of mother-and-baby homes; from the bright lights of 1960s London and back to more recent times. In this novel, the question is: will James get what he wants, or what he deserves?
So when that fateful question, ‘What do you write?’ arises, I’m trying to teach myself to say something like this:
‘I write novels set in the past. They’re not about kings and queens, but people like you and me, caught up in realistic events, in places you’ll recognise. My characters fall in love – often with the wrong people – and face overwhelming challenges. But if I’ve succeeded, you’ll be with them every step of the way. Their time and place will have become your time and place. And when their stories end, you won’t forget them...’

I was preparing ‘Moon Rising’ for ebook publication in late October, when my film-maker friend suggested she might pitch the idea at a London conference of directors and producers.

‘It’s set in Whitby,' she said. 'Very visual. It’s about Bram Stoker and ‘Dracula’ - a great hook to get people interested…’

Far from convinced, I gave her a few pointers on content, plot, etc, and crossed my fingers for luck. To my astonishment, she arrived back with exciting news: an American producer (UK based, good track record) had shown enthusiasm.

‘But he wants to see a script. So will you write one?’
‘A film script? But I’ve never…’

‘It’s easy – you just write the dialogue and some stage directions.’

‘But the novel doesn’t have much dialogue,’ I protested.

‘Oh, you’re good at dialogue – you can make it up.’

Maybe so, but I must just say at this point: I’m very much aware that the film world is notoriously unpredictable. Film rights can be discussed, scripts written, enthusiasm garnered – but if things don’t gel, nothing happens. Back in 2000, when ‘Moon Rising’ was first published, US film people were suggesting Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise and Liam Neeson for the lead roles… no, really, not kidding.

A script was written – but nothing happened. Before that, the BBC even took out an option on ‘Dagger Lane’ – drama budget cut – nothing happened.

So I’m not a starry-eyed innocent – thing is, I can’t resist a challenge. And here I am, three months down the line, working on a script of ‘Moon Rising’.

After several breaks away from it, I’m halfway through the book, and I know the script is far too long already. So I’m giving myself the kind of advice seasoned writers give to novices: ‘Just get the story down – you can edit later…’

But after more than 30 years of writing, I’m very much aware that every line of dialogue should count. It needs to say something about the character, and/or carry the action forward. Ideally, even a remark on the weather should suggest something more than the obvious.

Okay, I can do that (I tell myself) but there’s another challenge. A good novel is generally based on more than one plot. What’s happening to the chief protagonists from first page to last is the drive that carries the story forward; but one or more sub-plots concerning other characters provide necessary twists and turns along the way.

‘Moon Rising’, the novel, has several threads:
Damaris Sterne is an orphan, but has a difficult relationship with her extended family (the Sternes and the Firths). A desire to be different is what drives her forward.

She lost her father at sea – so is not about to commit to any local fisherman or seafarer. She wants something/someone better.

Damaris starts working for the photographer, Jack Louvain. Through him she meets a handsome stranger – Bram Stoker. Circumstances bring them together.

And then they part – not to meet again for 20 years. By which time Stoker is a sick man, and she’s a wealthy widow.

The challenges so far identified in this attempt to make the novel into a screenplay are these:
First of all, how did Damaris Sterne and Bram Stoker meet? (In Whitby in a storm.)

What drove him back to Whitby the following summer? (Difficult to convey – it’s ‘off the page’ in the novel.)

Why did Damaris decamp from her lodgings and take up residence with Stoker? (Complicated – most notably her relationship with Bella Firth, her abused friend and cousin.)

Why did Stoker come to Whitby from London, without telling anyone where he was? (He’s teetering on the edge of a breakdown, but keeping a lot back.)

How did this intense Whitby affair affect his writing? (Fairly easy to convey.)

But what about the years between the end of the affair and their meeting again two decades later? Years in which her life moved forward into business, marriage and wealth, while he wrote ‘Dracula’ and suffered for it? (At the moment, this aspect seems insurmountable.)

So far I’ve spent half the pages written setting up the different relationships with family, employer and friends. Stoker has appeared, disappeared, and returned. He and Damaris are together for the next few weeks…

In film terms, I feel I’m just getting to the heart of this story – or in TV drama terms, the middle episode of three.

Because there’s so much more – the photographer, Jack Louvain; evil cousin Isa Firth; and handsome seafarer Jonathan Markway…

Not to mention the blackmail – and the murder...
Advice, anybody? (Please keep it clean!)

England and Portugal have been pals since a pact of perpetual friendship was sealed with the Treaty of Windsor in 1386 – the oldest still-running alliance in the world.
Of course, like any friendship, there have been a few hiccups along the way, not least when Portugal ran out of direct heirs to its kingdom. Overrun by that ambitious Spaniard, Philip II of Spain in 1580, and forced to contribute ships to the Spanish Armada, there must have been a few beards scratched over that ticklish little problem.
But the alliance was not revoked. Indeed, it was reconfirmed when, in the 1660s, both Portugal and Britain regained their respective monarchies, and Charles II married Catherine of Braganza, daughter of Portugal’s King John IV.
There have been a few diplomatic difficulties since then, but somehow the friendship has survived. Despite a long succession of totalitarian rulers, the Portuguese people seem far more relaxed and friendly towards us Brits than their neighbours in Spain. No wonder so many of us flock down to the Algarve for our holidays!
There’s a lot more to Portugal than the Algarve, of course. It’s a couple of years or more since we travelled by motorhome from Santiago in northern Spain down through Portugal to Lagos – missing out on Porto and Lisbon, but finding hidden gems like Evora and Alcobaça instead.
Recently, with just a week’s break, we flew from Southampton to Faro, drove to Lagos, and met up with friends spending the winter nearby. They were keen to take us to some great restaurants, where perfectly-cooked fish and delicious meat dishes were to be had for roughly the price of a hamburger in a UK McDonald’s.
Portugal has been famous for port for centuries, but there’s also the unfortified wine – rounded reds from the Alentejo region which rival anything from the rest of the world at half the price. Why don’t they export it? Or their fantastic sun-ripened fruit and veg? I don’t know, but it’s rarely seen in British supermarkets, despite Portugal’s membership of the EU. But maybe it’s better drunk and eaten there – just one of the reasons for going back.
Another reason is the scenery – from golden beaches along the Algarve to the wild cliffs and secret coves of the Atlantic coast.
On our first visit to Cape St Vincent – the most south-westerly point in Europe – Captain Peter said he’d seen it innumerable times from seaward while navigating his way home. After a worldwide voyage, sighting the Cape had always been an exciting moment – it meant home was only days away. So for him it was a particular joy to be there. He’d achieved an ambition to view it from landward – and what’s more, the land was beautiful.
We’ve paid homage each time since, thinking of all those early navigators who bravely left the known world in the 15th Century, venturing along strange coasts and across unknown seas in search of the route to the Indies…
In Portugal it brings Henry the Navigator to mind. Remember his name from history & geography lessons in school? He was the man who did the research and provided the backing for many of those 15th Century voyages of exploration. A lesser known fact is that Henry’s mother was English. She was Philippa of Lancaster, her father John of Gaunt, her brother Henry IV of England. In 1387 Philippa’s marriage to King John I of Portugal confirmed the Treaty of Windsor between the two countries.
So yes, Portugal’s an old friend – and that’s official. No wonder we feel so comfortable there.

How do you turn historical fact into fiction? It's like baking a cake - as simple and as complicated as that...

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I knew the voice, its quality and intonation, even though the pitch was deeper than I remembered. At first I thought he was speaking to someone else, and was terrified to turn, but when I did, I saw only the man I’d run into outside the hotel, the one I’d felt gazing at me earlier. My mouth twitched into a polite half-smile as my eyes skimmed over him and away, and then flashed back with shock.
The broad-brimmed hat shadowed his face; removing it, he bowed briefly and gave a wry smile, quite at variance with the intensity of his gaze. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It is Damaris Sterne – just as I thought.’
It was years since anyone had called me by my given name. I knew him then. Under the lights his eyes were unchanged, and in the moment of recognition my smile froze. For several seconds I stood in rigid disbelief; then, hard on the heels of shock came a surge of guilt so hot it seemed to scorch my face and throat. The pain made nonsense of the years between: our last meeting might have been a matter of days ago instead of half a lifetime.
Totally unprepared, I took a step backwards and almost fell; would have done so had it not been for the steadying hand at my elbow. Even so, a stranger’s help would have been more welcome. Angrily, I shook him off, not wanting to be reminded of the first time, all those years ago, when he’d pulled me back from the edge of a cliff.

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‘How wonderful,’ my elderly aunt had said when I told her I’d be going to sea for a few months with my husband and three-year-old daughter. ‘You’re going on a cruise…’

I knew she’d got it wrong, but didn’t feel I could shift her fixed ideas of tea on the boat-deck and waiters in white tuxedos. Travelling as a guest aboard merchant ships is rather different, and trips ashore can be an education.

I’d heard so much about Japan – I’d seen pictures of geishas, cherry blossom and exotic temples – but being there was like nothing I’d imagined. After the unfortunate incident in Kakogawa (‘Don’t drink the Water’) the ship moved out of dry-dock to anchor in Osaka Bay.

Since we were awaiting orders and our next cargo, my husband Peter was able to take a rare day off.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘you want to see a bit of traditional Japan, so why don’t we take the train up to Kyoto? Lots of ancient temples there, and it’s only about an hour away.’

The 3rd Engineer and his wife planned to go into Osaka shopping, so we booked a launch to take us ashore, and arranged to meet up by the quay later in the day.

If it was hot by the coast, inland it was breathless with heat and humidity. It was long past cherry blossom time and even the trees were wilting. Having our daughter Louise with us, we took it easy, wandering the streets of ancient Kyoto, peering down alleyways as we made our way towards the heart of the old capital of Japan.

In my light cotton dress, I gazed in awe at kimono-clad ladies in silken finery, wondering how they managed to look so cool. We found respite in an air-conditioned restaurant, and toured one of the temples in the afternoon. The perfectly manicured gardens were exquisite, and the carved wood, deep eaves and tiered pagodas were a feast for the eyes. I longed to know more about them, their age and history, but sadly, I learned very little – all the information was in Japanese.

After an hour or so, our little daughter was flagging, so reluctantly we headed back to the station for the train.

At the quay in Osaka-Ko, Ray and Diane were waiting. The wind had sprung up and was threatening a storm, while out in the Bay it looked alarmingly choppy. When the launch returned, it seemed conditions were not good. The two men mulled it over. They would have chanced it, but neither was willing to risk our lives getting back on board.

‘I think we’d better start looking for a hotel…’

Port areas are rarely the stuff of tourist brochures, but nor are they as lurid as books and films would suggest. The streets of Osaka-Ko were clean, the buildings a mix of traditional and modern. We found a place to eat, and as twilight fell searched for somewhere suitable to stay. Since most of the signs were in Japanese, it wasn’t easy, but we spotted one in the end, a traditional hotel, with a tiled roof and wooden walls. It looked clean and bright and welcoming.

Clad in a plain dark kimono, Mama-san – the middle-aged lady in charge – came out to greet us. Her face lit up when she saw our daughter. Louise’s fair curly hair and winning smile worked their usual magic. At once Mama-san couldn’t do enough for us.

While a young woman took Ray and Diane upstairs, Mama-san escorted us personally to a room with a western-style bed and a futon for the little one. She turned on the TV, indicated the fridge-bar, fully stocked, and in broken English said anything else we needed, we must come down and let her know…

Louise, meanwhile, was mesmerised by the television – something she hadn’t seen for a quite a while. I sat with her, thinking how good she’d been during a hot and tiring day. An old cowboy-film was flickering on the small screen, a Mexican in a sombrero riding down the main street of a ramshackle town. He hitched his horse to the rails, flung back his poncho and pushed open the swing doors of the bar. He sat down, ordered a drink and something to eat.

It was when the bowl of rice appeared and he picked up his chopsticks that my jaw dropped.

Suddenly it was so hysterically funny, I could barely speak. ‘Well, I’ve heard of spaghetti westerns,’ I managed at last, ‘but what do we call this?’

‘Sukiyaki?’ my husband offered.

Still laughing, I opened the fridge-bar, but saw it had little in the way of soft drinks. ‘I’ll pop downstairs,’ I said to Peter, ‘and see if Mama-san’s got orange or lemonade for Louise.’

She had, handing the softies over with much bowing and smiling. I bowed in return, thanked her and turned for the stairs. Coming down were a young couple – he a westerner, she a pretty Japanese girl. I smiled and said good evening. He seemed startled, but smiled and returned the greeting. For a split-second his companion froze. Her glance travelled over me, down and back up again. It took in my height, my colouring, my mini-dress and my shoes. That look would have withered nettles.

‘Well,’ I declared when I reached our room, ‘that wasn’t very nice…’

I was barely through my explanation when Peter started laughing. ‘You probably gave her a shock,’ he said at last. ‘Seeing a westerner in a place like this.’

‘Place like this? What do you mean?’

With a lop-sided grin, my other half said, ‘Haven’t you got it yet? She was probably wondering what Mama-san’s up to, letting western girls in…’

Slowly, the penny dropped. ‘You mean… a brothel?’

‘Well, it is a port area,’ he reminded me with a smile. ‘Sorry, love, I thought you’d realised?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it never crossed my mind…’

But then I saw the funny side, putting myself in Mama-san’s place. ‘She must have been delighted,’ I giggled, ‘when she saw us arriving. Imagine – a real live family – respectability at last!’

‘Quite a change from the usual trade!’

I couldn’t help wondering what auntie would say…