I
live on a smallholding in West Wales with my husband, rescue dog and a flock of
sheep. A self-taught artist, I paint the fabulous coastal scenery in
watercolour and have work in private collections worldwide. I love walking,
gardening, good company, and anything creative. My stories reflect my interests
and my concerns, my love of family, animals and the countryside, my hatred of
injustice and intolerance, my determination, and my sometimes gravely-challenged
ability to forgive. I’m fairly laid-back, have developed a pretty thick skin,
and I rarely get angry. I suppose I’m a contradiction.
IAN:
Please tell us about your latest book.
R.B.: Touching
the Wire, my second published novel, is set the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz,
in 1944-45, and also in 70s and present-day England. It’s a story of the women
of the holocaust and the effects the holocaust still has on our lives. It’s
dedicated to the memory of a very special Polish Jew whose pain haunts me
still.
Miriam,
a Jewish nurse, steps down from a cattle wagon into the heart of a young
doctor. As their relationship blossoms, they fight to save lives amidst the
horrors of a death camp, joining the camp resistance and risking death daily.
Liberation catapults them from one hell into another as they are separated.
While Miriam is left behind in the camp infirmary, sick with scarlet fever, the
doctor is forced onto the March of Death across Poland in the bitter January of
1945, taking with him stolen evidence of war crimes.
In
post-war Britain, to protect his new family, the doctor fails to keep his
promise to reveal the truth about the death-camp doctors and is haunted by
guilt. It’s his granddaughter, Charlotte, seventy years later and fighting her
own demons, who unravels her grandfather’s past and keeps his promise to his
lost love.
IAN:
Where can we go to buy your books?
IAN:
Tell us about your next book or a work in progress. Is it a sequel or a stand-alone?
R.B.:
Where Hope Dares is my third novel, a stand-alone thriller, and I hope to
release it later this month.
Where Hope Dares is available for Kindle at http://getbook.at/WhereHopeDares
It’s
a story of courage, faith and hope in the eternal struggle of good over evil.
In
a time of social, religious and political upheaval, two isolated cultures clash
with devastating results. Kiya, a young healer, is kidnapped and brutally raped
by Alaric the Chosen to fulfil the ancient prophecy of The Gift. He takes her
north across the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco to the high priest of one of
his people’s pagan gods. Raphel, Kiya’s
storyteller husband, embarks on a thousand-mile journey to rescue her from the
high priest’s warmongering regime. Kiya and Raphel both look to Abe, an enigmatic
peddler for aid, but Abe has a secret agenda of his own – a prime directive
dictated by a long-dead pope. The two lovers find help where they least expect
it, but who can they really trust – friend or foe?
IAN: What
inspired you to write Where Hope Dares?
R.B: Where
Hope Dares was inspired by current scientific thinking about the past, present
and future of our planet, and mankind’s less than beneficial stay upon it It’s
also inspired by our strange relationship with our gods, and religious and
racial tolerance as a whole.
IAN: Did
you use an outline or do you just wing the first draft?
R.B.: I rarely use an outline. I have an idea of a beginning and a notion of
the end. How I get from one to the other is largely down to my characters and
where they take me. It’s usually a dramatic, painful and circuitous route, for
them and for me.
IAN: How
long did it take to write Where Hope Dares?
R.B.: Where
Hope Dares was actually the first novel I wrote, back around 2004. Then it was
called Destiny, and wasn’t very good: I’ve learned a lot about writing,
character development, settings and research during the last eleven years. But I
always liked the story, and still felt strongly about the issues that led to
its conception so, last year, I decided to rewrite it. I spent about six months
converting the tale to my new and, hopefully, more readable style of writing. I
then sent it out to beta readers who informed me of its many shortcomings. Obviously
much had been lost in ‘translation’. This was a setback I hadn’t anticipated
but I was undaunted: all criticism is valid and useful – it’s just a matter of
knowing how best to make use of it and apply it. Fortunately, one reader, who
has since written me a brilliant scientific ‘afterword’, suggested I gave a
more prominent role to Abe, an itinerant peddler and one of my minor
characters. It took several months to ponder how this could be achieved and how
it would impact the plot, and six more to weave what was essentially a new
character into the original story, but it has transformed the novel, given it added
depth and lifted it, I think, to a higher plane. So, you could say it’s taken me eleven years
to write Where Hope Dares.
IAN: What
do you hope your readers come away with after reading Where Hope Dares?
R.B.: Oh
gosh. That’s a difficult question to answer. I hope they value what and who they
have. I hope they see greed and intolerance as evils. I’d like to think they’ll
see our planet as a fragile and beautiful thing that we should protect at all
cost, not plunder indiscriminately for a quick buck: it’s the only one we have
and we have a duty of care to all the creatures that share it with us. I hope
they see religion for what it is, a comfort and a way of life to those who
believe, whatever their creed, not a weapon to beat others’ religions with. I’d
better get off my soap-box.
IAN: How
much of the book is realistic?
R.B.: The science behind it is as up-to-date and factual as I can make it. The
history of the Oromo people and the settings were researched, as were the
biblical texts that drive the underlying story and sub-plot. The characters and
the coming together of the three aspects of the tale are entirely figments of
my imagination.
IAN: How
is Where Hope Dares different from others in your genre?
R.B.: I’d
like to think it digs deeper, both into mine and my readers’ psyches. I’d like
to think there are important issues underscoring the story: things like love,
loss and hatred, tolerance, faith and what we build faith on, the errors of
corporate greed, political and religious idealism and fanaticism whether for
good or evil, and the diminishing resources and overpopulation of our planet.
IAN: If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
R.B.: I think Tolkien’s skill at creating great characters with moral strengths
and weaknesses, and providing richly-described settings and a believable, totally-grounded
and historically-documented world has to be the greatest influence in my
writing. Not that I could ever hope to emulate his work.
IAN: Name
one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
R.B.: My
long-time friend, Sarah Stuart, author of romances Dangerous Liaisons and
Illicit Passion, has been a huge support throughout my life and my writing
career. She is my harshest and most honest critic, and also helps with editing
and proof-reading my novels. (aka tearing apart rubbish and ‘upcycling’ it J)
IAN: Did
you learn anything from writing Where Hope Dares and what was it?
R.B.: All
the research into my novels has taught me something. The Silence of the Stones
taught me about rune-casting, in fact I actually used real rune-casting to
drive the story, and also it opened my eyes to mental illness. Touching the
Wire gave me a humbling insight into the holocaust and makes me grateful daily
for what I have. Where Hope Dares kept me awake at night, thinking of what man
is doing to the earth, but the research also gave me hope that the planet will
survive despite our attempts to destroy it. The writing process itself has made
me realise that I never give up. The bigger the challenge, the higher I climb.
IAN: Do
you have any advice for other writers?
R.B.: Research,
research, research. Then write, take criticism and act on it if it improves
your writing and the story. Rewrite, edit, proof-read, take on board
suggestions with an open mind but stay true to yourself. Don’t try to write in
isolation: join a writing group – The Word Cloud on-line forum is a great place
to start. And keep at it. It’s a huge learning curve and, after three published
novels and several unpublished ones, I realise that the more I learn the less I
know.
IAN: Do
you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
R.B.: I
hope you enjoy my tales as much as I enjoyed writing them. On a higher plane:
appreciate what you have, love with all your heart, bear no malice, care for
our planet – teach your children well: they are our future.
IAN: What
were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in
bringing your three books to life?
R.B. Another
interesting question. I do like a challenge! Time to do the research, and write
and promote is a huge challenge. The learning curve has been almost vertical at
times, and encompasses aspects of writing and publishing I had no idea existed.
I think for me, the main challenge, apart from learning my craft, is
allowing myself to dig deeply into the painful parts of my life and laying my
soul bare to my readers in order to give life to my characters. In that
respect, writing has been cathartic but it hasn’t always been easy. In my early
attempts at writing I tended to gloss over emotion, as I often did in life. But
the results were bland, superficial, false and, as in life, unreal. By bringing
my own pain and emotion to the surface, I’ve made Alana, a struggling artist in
The Silence of the Stones, a woman fighting to carve out her own path and free
herself from her mother’s apron strings and the feeling she has of
responsibility for her mother’s happiness. Walt, in Touching the Wire, suffers
the guilt we all carry in one respect or another: by tapping into my own I
could show the effect it had on his life and his family. Kiya, in Where Hope
Dares, has my determination and my eternal optimism, though her faith is far stronger
than mine will ever be.
