I don’t really know whether to call A Just & Upright Man historical romance or historical crime fiction. It’s both, I suppose—it’s set in the 1760s in north-east England and the story of James Blakiston’s attempts to find Reuben Cooper’s murderer is entwined with the story of the same James Blakiston’s attempts to deny (to himself most of all) that he is hopelessly in love with Kate Greener, beautiful and spirited but simply not in his social class. You can find A Just & Upright Man on Amazon and at your local bookshop — but you don’t know who I am and you don’t know whether I can write, so why should you buy my book?
I thought about that for a while, and the result of my thinking was the decision to upload this recording of Bird so that you can listen to it free, and listening to it may help you decide whether I’m your kind of writer. The BBC thought Bird was good enough to broadcast on Radio 4 and it was read beautifully by Heather Bell who really got under the skin of my characters. (It’s wonderful when someone does that). I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it.
Listen to Bird here.
A Just & Upright Man is here on Amazon—I hope you like the story and I hope you like the book. It’s the first in a five book series.
I loved the story. So moving. So human. Thank you for making it available.