60 Seconds with Ann Swinfen

Ann Swinfen spent her childhood partly in England and partly on the east coast of America. She read Classics and Mathematics at Oxford. Her first three novels, The Anniversary, The Travellers, and A Running Tide, all with a contemporary setting but also historical resonance, were published by Random House, with translations into Dutch and German. Her fourth novel, The Testament of Mariam, marked something of a departure. Set in the first century, it recounts, from an unusual perspective, one of the most famous and yet ambiguous stories in human history. At the same time it explores life under a foreign occupying force, in lands still torn by conflict to this day. Her second historical novel, Flood, is set in the fenlands of East Anglia during the seventeenth century, where the local people fought desperately to save their land from greedy and unscrupulous speculators.

Currently she is working on a series set in late sixteenth century London, featuring a young Marrano physician who is recruited as a code-breaker and spy in Walsingham’s secret service. The first book in the series is The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez.

She now lives on the northeast coast of Scotland, with her husband (formerly vice-principal of the University of Dundee), a cocker spaniel and two Maine Coon cats.


Website: http://www.answinfen.com
Twitter name: @annswinfen
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ann.swinfen?fref=ts
Link to Mariam podcast: http://bit.ly/1DPEhhh

Tell us what genre you write in and why?

In the past I’ve written contemporary literary fiction, but I’m now writing historical fiction. History fascinates me, and the sense that all our roots are in the past. We are what we are because of everything that has gone before.

Where do you write?

In an armchair, with an extra large lap tray holding my laptop, notebook, pen, cup of tea… Piled up on either side, reference books and notes.

What location most inspires your writing?

I love the sea, but also any wild open spaces - mountains, moorlands.

Which of your books are you most proud of - and why?

Aren’t all of our books like our children? It’s unkind to single one out. But I suppose The Testament of Mariam is the most searching. Though I always try to confront serious issues as well as tell a good story.

Tell us why you chose to write 'The Testament of Mariam'?

Those who haven’t read The Testament of Mariam should understand that it is not a religious book. I’m not a church-going Christian. However, I do believe there was a remarkable man called Yeshûa ben Yosef (his Aramaic name), living in the Roman-occupied province of Palestine in the first century. I was intrigued by the fact that a man from a peasant village in the northern, rebellious part of the country managed to change the world with his message. Yet he was flesh and blood, had a normal family. What would it have been like to be the sister of such a man? That was my starting point. I wanted to dig away to find what it would have been like. At the beginning.

How did you handle the research?

Research is a joy! It feeds my appetite for history and I gobble it up. I probably buy far too many research books (the house is groaning under their weight), but I like to own them. The internet can be useful as a starting point, but I prefer to use the professionals. For Mariam I was astonished to find what a lot of detailed information was available, including the massive transcription of the Dead Sea Scrolls. When I needed to write a psalm of my own to use in the Essene portion, I even found a book on the structure and imagery of the psalms!

How did you so effortlessly transport the reader to the period/location?

I suppose it’s because when I am writing about a particular period and location, I am simultaneously living there myself, inside my head. All my senses are alive to the situation, so I suppose that comes across in the writing.

What book has most impressed you this year?

I seem to have been rereading a lot this year - the whole of Dorothy Dunnett’s work, the whole Cadfael series. I’ve also read, for the third or fourth time, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I’ve long admired Hilary Mantel’s work and I think these are her best yet, so they take the prize.

You have moved from trad to indie publishing - why?

I became very frustrated with traditional publishing, with all its restrictions and long, long delays. When my agent said she wasn’t interested in handling historical fiction any more, it was time to move on. Indie publishing hands back control to the author, so we are reverting to the publishing practices which existed right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Indie authors form a warm and supportive community. I’m in control and have a wonderful group of friends - no wonder I’m happy!

What are your future writing plans?

I’ll be continuing with the Elizabethan Christoval Alvarez series, featuring a young physician working as a code-breaker and spy, which will eventually carry on into the reign of James I. A lot of readers have been urging me to write a sequel to my seventeenth-century fenland novel, Flood, so that is on the cards. A mediaeval series is a gleam in the corner of my eye.

Thank you so much, Gill, for inviting me to do this interview - excellent questions!


Anne has kindly offered one lucky reader the chance to listen to the audiobook version of The Testament of Mariam for FREE via Audible. Simply email whether you are US or UK based to [email protected] to enter the prize draw.

You can read Gillian's review of The Testament of Mariam .... HERE

Indie Picks - explore some of the best of Indie Publishing through our author recommendations

by Catriona Troth

It all started after London Book Fair 2014, when Porter Anderson of The Bookseller, in one of his characteristically provocative posts, questioned whether indie authors actually read books written by other indie authors.

I was already in the throes of organising the inaugural Indie Author Fair - bringing forty indie authors together to create a pop-up bookshop at the Chorleywood Lit Fest. We had a unique opportunity to demonstrate the quality of work from indie authors and I wanted to spread the net as wide as possible. So, inspired by Anderson’s challenge, I called for recommendations for the best indie reads. The responses came in from all quarters, and the results were put on display at the Fair on 16th November.

So now, here is our invitation to explore the best of Indie Author Publishing through a selection of our Indie Picks... 

Recommended by JW Hicks: Author of Rats

Roz Morris: My Memories of a Future Life As soon as I read the title I was hooked; it conjured such speculations! But it was the three dimensional characters in this wonderfully written novel that kept me reading. They leapt from the page, insisting I speed through to the very last one. But even after the book was finished those characters - those people - stayed with me. If it’s true that a good book haunts you, then Memories of a Future Life is a darned good book. It’s the characters, drawn with such exquisite care by Roz Morris, that make this book unputdownable. For example, Carole, the classical pianist imprisoned in a world of pain caused by RSI. And Jerry, subject to such violent panic attacks he’d once been hospitalised for a suspected heart attack. And there’s Gene, of course - the mysterious face-from-the-past; the puzzle that Carol wants so desperately to solve. My verdict? Memories of a Future Life is a truly satisfying book and well worth reading.

Inceptio by Alison Morton This hi-octane, fast moving thriller is set in an Alternate timeline, in a branch that split from ours before the fall of Rome. In this Alternate Earth the Roman Empire has dwindled into the matriarchal state of Roma Nova. Karen Brown lives in the Autonomous City of New York, but has roots in Roma Nova. She is targeted by Renschman, a government enforcer with orders to eliminate her. Aided by Roma Novan special operative, Conrad Tellus, she escapes to Roma Nova in the nick of time. But crazed Renschman follows... You can read more of Carina Mitela’s adventures in Books 2 and 3 of Alison Morton’s Roma series.

Becoming Human by Eliza Green Becoming Human by Eliza Green, is a powerful tale. I was glued to it by the time I finished the prologue! Alien space vehicles terraform a planet. For humans of a dying Earth to occupy this New Earth the indigenous species must die. The Indigene survivors find refuge underground ... to plot revenge on the murderous Surface Creatures. Humans and Aliens - how very different, yet how much alike as they fight for survival. Just what is the terrifying secret that must be hidden, but which needs to be discovered? The deep, dark secret that underlies the New Earth colonisation? I defy any reader to experience anything but tingling tension as they read this totally absorbing futuristic hi-energy novel. Recommended by Kevin Booth: Author of Celia’s Room House of Silence by Linda Gillard A young woman for whom family signifies betrayal and abandonment, and who has learnt to maintain her emotional isolation, falls for a seductive young actor whose sprawling web of relatives she welcomes as icing on her romantic cake. Yet invited for Christmas at their chilly old mansion presided over by a flighty matriarch, cracks in the family’s happy façade cause her to question the enigmatic past of this apparently idyllic family. Steering skilfully between the genres of romance and mystery, Linda Gillard has written a captivating read that will keep you guessing till the end. One Night at the Jacaranda by Carol Cooper In search of love, a delightful miscellany of contrasting London types sign up for a night of speed-dating at the Jacaranda pub. Following the trials and tribulations of an undercover journo desperate for a feature, a GP with custody issues, a single mother, a terminally ill cat-lover, an obsessive misogynist and an ex-con, among others, Carol Cooper has written a light, witty an enjoyable book about the perennial quest for one’s better half.

Recommended by Rohan Quine: Author of The Imagination Thief

Cured Meat by Polly Trope: Cured Meat by Polly Trope is a unique and inventive combination of confessional autobiography (with much darkness to confess) and literary/experimental fiction. Its wilful smudging of the boundaries of those two categories, both on the scale of its overarching journey and from paragraph to paragraph, is poetic in itself, veering from stark to gently humorous and transmuting degradation into lyricality.

Songs from the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway Songs from the Other Side of the Wall by Dan Holloway investigates love, pain, time, identity, coincidence, personal fulfilment and narrative structure itself. Its ambitious and successful embrace of these big themes is served up with tasty and original forays into more specific arenas of human activity - such as the subtleties of Tokaji wines and their culture, currents in contemporary art, and the human politics of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its hip, sensuous surface smoothly overlays a less smooth landscape of emotional disjunction and quite some existential anguish and alienation. This is challenging literary art, resulting in serious entertainment.

These Fragile Things by Jane Davis In These Fragile Things, the characters’ thought processes, emotional machinations and motivations are unfolded with thoroughness and clarity in real time, giving us a feeling of being intelligently anchored in reality throughout. But there are heights and spaces aplenty above this grounding. One of this novel’s many energetic and skilful successes is perhaps in suggesting that whether or not there are Miracles as such, each of us does nonetheless retain the option of remaining richly alive to the Miraculous within the fabric and the mysteries of the everyday world around us.

Recommended by Elizabeth Woodcraft, author of A Sense of Occasion

Lillian's Last Affair by Sue Katz- The interesting thing about this book is its subject matter. This is a collection of short stories about seniors and their sex lives - something we never read about - told with humour, sensitivity, lust and dignity. A good read.

The Irish Twins by Susan Hill I have loved Susan Hill's writing for a long time, Strange Meeting is an all time favourite. I was interested when she began publishing her own books. This in fact is a novella - with an unfortunate title - but demonstrates her unquestionable skill of pulling you in to the story as we follow the destiny of two smart determined girls and the twin brothers that they meet.

Recommended by Patrick A Parish

Amulet: Book 1 of the DragonBlade Series, by Nancy Lee Parish Amulet is a debut novel, intended to be a fun fantasy that's suitable for most ages (however, is not intended as a strictly Young Adult works). It's a professionally edited novel that couples a unique writing style with a fast paced rhythm and best of all, dragons. I would actually recommend the entire series (there are currently two books and a third WIP), however, it always seems fitting to start at the beginning.

Banshee in the Well,  by Robin Lovejoy Banshee In The Well is intended to be a debut Young Adult story. This story tells of a young boy who finds a girl in the well on his farm. The girl turns out to be a 13th century banshee who needs to find a way to get her magic back and return from our time to hers. The relationship between the two main characters is really well written as is the way Sathra, the banshee sees modern things which she has obviously never seen before. As well, it was written by a Tolkien, what more can be said?

Beyond Hades, written by Luke Romyn Beyond Hades is another beginning selection of a series that I believe would be suitable for most age groups, however isn't strictly speaking Young Adult. From the gripping prologue which immediately seizes your attention, Romyn hurls you into an endless vortex of action through unexpected dimensions which leaves you trying to catch your breath. Where many have tried to create the next fantastic adventure which resulted in a remake of some past epic novel, Romyn has successfully created a series of parallel worlds the likes of which I'd never seen and he has done so seamlessly as to make the reader believe this could actually be. Recommended by RJ Lynch: author of the James Blakiston Series  The Red Hill by David Penny The Red Hill is a historical novel set in Muslim Spain at a time when Islam is about to lose the foothold it has had there for a long time. Islamic characters and views are presented with an unusual degree of sympathy, while the details of ordinary life both for those in power and for the common people, are entirely convincing.  The Testament of Mariam by Ann Swinfen This is a story we all know - a basic item in the British canon - but presented from an unusual point of view. We see the life of Jesus (and the role of Judas) but we see them from the point of view of the sister of Jesus and the fiancée of Judas and not, as we usually do, filtered through the eyes and wishes of the Churches. The characters and events are presented with a freshness and a feeling of reality that carries the book forward.  Recommended by Roz Morris: Author of My Memories of a Future Life and Lifeform Three Breathing For Two by Wolf Pascoe  It is a curious responsibility to drug a person to immobility and unconsciousness. Then you must keep them in that precarious state until the surgeon has done his work. And while those moments or hours may be blank for the patient, they're sometimes way more of a struggle than the sleeper would ever suspect. The style is poetic through its simplicity, sensitivity and insight. Wolf Pascoe takes you on an unforgettable journey between night and day. The Survival of Thomas Ford by John Logan A story about a man who survives a crash in which his wife dies. But the driver who caused the collision is hunting him down because he is worried about being identified. From this apparently straightforward premise comes a story that is tense and gripping - but far from simple. The characters Thomas must outwit are unhinged, amoral lowlifes, from a milieu that gentle Thomas has never before had to encounter - like most of us who live normally and quietly. This gives the novel a universal, mythical quality. This is a story of survival, but not just physical escape. It is a crawl back to life after a clash with barbarous, feral forces. It is also a clash with conscience - if someone died beside you, and you feel responsible, how do you survive? Do you even deserve to? The prose is bold and unfancy, yet supple enough to connect with the vast and elemental. I frequently found myself rereading pages - not because of any problem with clarity, but because a phrase drummed in my head long after the plot had dragged me past, demanding a second look. The storytelling is effortless, the echoes are long lasting.