Tarawera Eruption - 125th Anniversary

On 10 June 1886 Mount Tarawera erupted, killing over 100 people. Ash darkened the sky, and earthquakes were felt over a wide area.

More on Tarawera can be found here.

The Pink and White Terraces, destroyed in the eruption, were a major tourist attraction of the day. Recently it's emerged that the Pink Terrace may still exist, deep under Lake Rotomahana. Just this morning I heard on the radio that the White Terrace, too, may have been found.

In my book Mud and Gold, Frank doesn't realise that it's the distant eruption causing the earthquakes giving Lizzie and him a broken night. Something rather closer to home is claiming his attention:

Passchendaele remembered

Recently I've been reading Glyn Harper's superb account of the New Zealand experience of Passchendaele. I've written here before about the Battle of Passchendaele and its horrific toll on New Zealanders.

This current reading came close to home—quite literally. At the back of the book is a list of names from the Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot Cemetery. To quote Harper: "The memorial bears the names of 1,179 New Zealanders who fell in the Passchendaele battles and whose bodies were never recovered."

I was going through this list, noting ages and what I could glean of personal circumstances, when the address of a next-of-kin sprang off the page. It's a short walk from our little apartment in town, in an area with many surviving Victorian houses, and a place I've walked past hundreds of times.



This house was built in the 1880s, and its exterior looks to have survived relatively unchanged. In October 1917 a telegram arrived for the widow who lived here. It told her that her son had been killed on the other side of the world. He was one of the 17,000 New Zealanders killed in the Great War.

I'll think of that young man, and of his grieving mother, every time I walk past her house.

Chivalry of the Ovine Kind

We have a flock of six sheep: five ewes and one wether. They're quite tame; even the most skittish (Scaredy) doesn't mind our presence, especially when we're handing out treats, and several will eat from our hands. Their purpose in life is to eat, and they're easily moved about from orchard to paddock, wherever the grass is longest.

The wether is the oldest of them. We're not sure how old he is, but he already looked fairly elderly when he came to live here several years ago. He still eats heartily, and is quite active, although he moves stiffly (hence his name, Limpy). We've had him checked out, and there's nothing obviously wrong with him. It's probably something in the nature of arthritis.

A few evenings ago I went outside to gather rosemary, and saw the sheep behaving as if something was up. The ewes were tightly bunched, as sheep like to be when threatened, but Limpy was several sheep lengths in front of them, standing firm and ready to face off whatever the threat was.

It proved to be the very small dog that belongs to our nearest neighbours, and which gives the impression it would have trouble injuring a teddy bear. I doubt if the sheep were really frightened, and they were certainly in no real danger. But Limpy takes his responsibilities seriously. He may not know quite what to do with his harem, but he does know he must look after them.

It's the thought that counts.

Here they are enjoying fresh pasture:

Amazon at Last

After much delay, my e-books are available in the Kindle Store. They got off to a good start on Amazon UK, where they've been bouncing in and out of the Top 100 of the Historical Fiction category, have a recommendation thread in the forums, and a five-star review by a Top 1000 reviewer. Things are going more quietly so far on Amazon.com, where I've yet to have any reviews, but it's early days still.

My Amazon pages:

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

Beware of illicit book listings

Today a very nice person took the trouble to let me know that my free ebook, Sentence of Marriage, was being offered for sale under another person's name on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. I've contacted Customer Service at both sites, and have posted warnings to any prospective purchasers in the Reviews section, so this person shouldn't receive any financial reward for such nefarious activity.

My ebooks aren't yet available on Amazon. I very much wish they were, but the arrangement to distribute Smashwords books on Amazon has suffered repeated delays. I'm still waiting patiently. In the meantime, they're available at several retailers, including Barnes & Noble, as well as at the Smashwords site. And to reiterate: the first one is free.

It's worth being suspicious if something about a book seems not quite right; in this case, the fact that the author's name on the Amazon listing doesn't match the name (mine) inside the book. An observant reader noticed this when sampling the book. It illustrates the power of readers - I discovered this thanks to readers, not any sort of authority.

While I'm indignant that someone has tried to take ownership of my work in this way, I'm hugely grateful to the person who started a thread about this in the Amazon UK forums, the person who contacted me, and all the people who've responded so positively. I'm left feeling far more warm and fuzzy about the actions of so many good people than annoyed by the actions of one ratbag.

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Update: Amazon UK has taken down the illicit book (I'm sure it helped that at least one person who'd bought this version contacted Customer Service for a refund when she realised the situation). It's still on Amazon.com, but is showing as unavailable for purchase.

Further update: It's now been taken down from both Amazon sites. Hurrah for helpful and observant readers!

Charlotte Brontë's New Zealand connection

I've known for a long time that a friend of Charlotte Brontë's settled in New Zealand, and I recalled a rather non-committal quote from one of her letters: "It seemed to me incredible that you had actually written a book". It sounds like the sort of thing someone might say when obliged to read a friend's book not necessarily to the reader's taste. I came across this quote again recently, and decided to look for more details of Mary Taylor's connection with Charlotte Brontë, and of Mary's life in New Zealand.

Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail

Ever since making the acquaintance of Mrs Croft in Persuasion, I've been intrigued by the idea of a woman living in such a thoroughly male environment as a naval ship, at a time when the spheres of men and women were far more strictly defined than today. So I was drawn to this account by New Zealand historian Joan Druett of captains' wives on sailing ships in the 19th century. It covers a period a little later than Mrs Croft's, and these were commercial vessels rather than naval, but conditions must have been similar in many ways.