Secret History Thriller, Historical Fantasy, Supernatural Thriller, Speculative Fiction.
Date Published: 28/01/2019
Publisher: Matador
It is 1761. Prussia is at war with Russia and Austria.
As the Russian army occupies East Prussia, King Frederick the Great and his men fight hard to win back their homeland.
In Ludwigshain, a Junker estate in East Prussia, Countess Marion von Adler celebrates an exceptional harvest. But it is requisitioned by Russian troops. When Marion tries to stop them, a Russian captain strikes her. His lieutenant, Ian Fermor, defends Marion’s honour and is stabbed for his insubordination. Abandoned by the Russians, Fermor becomes a divisive figure on the estate.
Close to death, Fermor dreams of the Adler, a numinous eagle entity, whose territory extends across the lands of Northern Europe and which is mysteriously connected to the Enlightenment. What happens next will change of the course of human history…
Hello
Justin and welcome to My Reading Addiction. Thanks for stopping by today to
talk about The Coronation!
My
pleasure, thanks for having me along, Momma G.
When
did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I
wrote a novel and some short stories when I was a young man, a student in my 20s.
Then
in my middle years, I read and wrote up a lot of historical research. Then, in
2007, I decided to return to writing fiction and took a course in Creative
Writing.
What
does your daily writing routine look like?
Edit
the previous day’s work, which helps clue me into the plot and the characters.
Then find a space in which to write for as long as I can before the next
interruption.
What
has been your greatest challenge as a writer? Have you been able to overcome
it?
I
grew up reading classic novels, like Crime and Punishment, Metamorphosis
and The Plague, all of which were written from an omniscient point of
view. Then I spent a lot of time writing up my non-fiction historical research.
Most modern historical novels are written in the third-person point of view.
These two features became ingrained habits. My greatest challenges for me as a
writer were to overcome these habits.
Who
are your writing inspirations?
A
mix of two influences.
First,
the Greek tragedians – Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus – taught me that
there is only one thing worth writing about – the human condition.
And
second, the existentialists – Kafka, Camus, and Dostoyevsky –taught me that the
only real way to examine the human condition is by removing your characters
from their comfort zone, and by jettisoning them into situations that are far
bigger than they are, and about which they have no prior experience.
Tell
us about a novel that had a large influence on you.
When
I was a young man, I read Frank Herbert’s Dune, a fantasy novel. Its
evocative descriptions of the desert inspired me to go to the Sahara Desert to
experience one for myself.
What
are you currently reading?
Carlos
Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind.
What
appeals to you about your chosen genre?
Because
I write secret histories, in a sense it gives me the opportunity to re-write or
re-interpret history, not what happened, but why it happened, what unseen
forces were at play that motivated and influenced the decisions of the men and
women of the time, and how those events and people fitted into the zeitgeist –
the spirit of the times.
A
wise person once said, it’s not the facts, but the interpretation of the facts
that matter.
What
historical time period do you gravitate towards with your personal reading?
It
varies. I tend to read the historical period about which I’m writing. But I’d
say that the most revealing, enigmatic, obscure and misunderstood historical
period is – by far – Ancient Egypt.
What
do you do when you aren't writing?
Good
conversation. Reading. Walking. Live
Sport.
Tell
us about your work in progress.
A
two-book series set in England in Elizabethan England. Like my other novels,
it’s a coming-of-age story, this time for England, my home country. The series
is called The Island of Angels.
Provisionally
entitled The Mark of the Salamander, the first book covers Francis
Drake’s circumnavigation of the world ending in 1581. The second, provisionally
entitled The Midnight of Eights, culminates in the repulse of the
Spanish Armada in 1588.
About the Author
Justin Newland is an author of historical fantasy and secret history thrillers – that’s history with a supernatural twist. His historical novels feature known events and real people from the past, which are re-told and examined through the lens of the supernatural.
His novels speculate on the human condition and explore the fundamental questions of our existence. As a species, as Homo sapiens sapiens – that’s man the twice-wise – how are we doing so far? Where is mankind’s spiritual home? What does it look or feel like? Would we recognise it if we saw it?
Undeterred by the award of a Doctorate in Mathematics from Imperial College, London, he found his way to the creative keyboard and conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.
Next came the supernatural thriller, The Old Dragon’s Head (Matador, 2018), set in Ming Dynasty China.
His third novel, The Coronation (Matador, 2019), speculates on the genesis of the most important event of the modern world – the Industrial Revolution.
His fourth, The Abdication (Matador, 2021), is a supernatural thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith.
His stories add a touch of the supernatural to history and deal with the themes of war, religion, evolution and the human’s place in the universe.
He was born three days before the end of 1953 and lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.
Contact Links
Twitter: @Matador
Purchase Links
Other book stores:
Author’s Website (where buyers can enter a dedication to be signed by the author):
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1 Comments
Thanks for hosting this stop on the RA Blog Tour of the Coronation. So pleased to be on your site today.
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