Bestselling Author Beverly Swerling & BRISTOL HOUSE

I’m happy to welcome multi-published historical thriller author Beverly Swerling, at Between the Sheets today. Her latest novel, BRISTOL HOUSE weaves the story of a 21st century woman with the ghost of a dead monk from the 16th century—sending her on an adventure to solve a five-hundred-year old unsolved mystery.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In modern-day London, architectural historian and recovering alcoholic Annie Kendall hopes to turn her life around and restart her career by locating several long-missing pieces of ancient Judaica. Geoff Harris, an investigative reporter, is soon drawn into her quest, both by romantic interest and suspicions about the head of the Shalom Foundation, the organization sponsoring her work. He’s also a dead ringer for the ghost of a monk Annie believes she has seen at the flat she is subletting in Bristol House.

In 1535, Tudor London is a very different city, one in which monks are being executed by Henry VIII and Jews are banished. In this treacherous environment of religious persecution, Dom Justin, a Carthusian monk, and a goldsmith known as the Jew of Holborn must navigate a shadowy world of intrigue involving Thomas Cromwell, Jewish treasure, and sexual secrets. Their struggles shed light on the mysteries Annie and Geoff aim to puzzle out—at their own peril.

This riveting dual-period narrative seamlessly blends a haunting supernatural thriller with vivid historical fiction. Beverly Swerling, widely acclaimed for her City of Dreams series, delivers a bewitching and epic story of a historian and a monk, half a millennium apart, whose destinies are on a collision course.

 

I adore novels that take place in two different eras, with a mystery to boot! Did you ever have trouble switching in and out of time?

The idea for BRISTOL HOUSE came to me “all of a piece” as it were.  I had Annie, the contemporary heroine, and Dom Justin and The Jew of Holborn, the two Tudor ghosts, all speaking in my head at the same time.  So there was never any question but that it would be a “back and forth in time” novel.

In fact I’ve done a couple of those in the past – WOMEN’S RITES and A MATTER OF TIME  both Beverly Byrne books and both out of print now – so I knew I could do it.  Working out the transitions is always a challenge, but that’s craft not inspiration.  Remember the old joke about stopping a New Yorker to ask how to get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice.

With BRISTOL HOUSE the mystery kept changing as I wrote.  I would have something firmly on the page – the code of the A’s, for example – which I originally intended to be one thing, then find out that it wouldn’t work unless I made it something else.  That happens to me because I never outline but work out my novels in the writing of them.  Which is maybe why I rewrite so many times!  Can’t help it.  That’s my process and I’ve learned to trust it.

 

You mentioned that you lived in Europe. Where, and did you have a favorite place that you researched for BRISTOL HOUSE?

We spent twenty-five plus years based in Europe, and we still go back and forth a lot but consider our base these days our old Victorian row house in Philly.  Much of our time abroad was centered on the UK (with strong connections to France and Spain) so for me setting a novel in London was a natural.  In fact, Number 8 Bristol House, the flat that is central to the novel is real.  It belongs to my son’s in-laws and I have spent a lot of time there.  I always knew I would write about it someday.  That’s why I’ve said that this novel has been lying in wait for me…  It truly has.  Even, says she mysteriously, the ghosts…

You started in nonfiction. What was it about fiction writing that pulled you in?

As you say, I was a free-lance journalist for a while before I mustered the guts to attempt a novel.  Writing fiction represented a leap in the dark.  As you know, it’s a much harder thing to do.  The facts dictate what you can and cannot say in a piece based on someone else’s truth – which I think defines non-fiction.  You simply need to be rigorous about research and adept at composing an English sentence.  Given a certain predisposition to those skills, you can learn to do such things well.  I had good teachers (i.e. editors) and I did learn.

A novel, on the other hand, is based not on someone else’s truth but on your own.  You must be absolutely truthful in a much more fundamental way; speaking the truth inside yourself.  It takes intestinal fortitude to bare your soul that way.  I’m sure that’s why though I always knew I would earn my living as a writer (it was pretty much my only skill from about age six!), it took a while before I worked up the courage to take my clothes off in public.

 Talk about your process. Do you write many drafts? And how do you work through the doldrum days?

I write so many drafts I cannot count them.  I always know where I’m going but not how I’m going to get there, and I’m compulsively accurate about facts – again, as you know, that’s a big deal for us as writers of historical fiction – so I’m also researching as I go and may find that something I assumed to be true is not/was not, which will necessitate another change.  But in the end I believe that this constant rewriting helps to build the texture and depth that readers compliment in my novels.  I have to believe that!  I couldn’t do it any other way so have convinced myself it’s worth something to rewrite as much as I do.

I start very early in the a.m.  – around five – and don’t even pick up my e-mail until ten a.m. or later.  And if I’m actually writing a novel I write seven days a week until I turn it in.   So in one sense my answer to the bad I-can’t-write days is, “apply backside to chair.”  But I readily admit there are days when I can’t produce one new page of text, let alone the eight or ten pages I aim for.  Those will be days when all I manage is rewriting.   There are times when it goes so well I can do a book in less than a year (CITY OF PROMISE was like that).  BRISTOL HOUSE took four years.

Do you have advice for aspiring writers?

I do, and interestingly it has changed over the years.  I used to tell new writers how important it is to have the right agent because given how editors change jobs, the agent is the only constant in a writer’s life.  That’s still true, but less so.  We used to need that powerful agent because we were clawing our way up the marketing stepladder in a publishing world where there was nothing between a budget of zero and say $200,000.  That is entirely different today.  Social media is the how and the why of selling books in today’s world and the most important thing a new writer can do is recognize the need to take responsibility for that.  Try and get your publisher on board with what you are going to do (here’s where having that strong agent with clout and commitment still matters), but know from day one that you are going to do it and it will take a lot of time and probably a bit of money.

Of course, none of this is about the writing, but if you want to make a living doing this, it’s every bit as important as how you develop character and how you structure plot.

SPEED ROUND

Hidden Talent:   Well, it’s not very hidden since it frequently feels as if I am feeding the five-thousand, but I am a really terrific cook.

Memorable Moment:  Probably the precise moment when I became a believer.  Walked into a church because I was cold and couldn’t get a taxi. (I was 21 and this was on Park Avenue in NYC and in those days churches didn’t lock their doors until late at night.)  Found Jesus Christ was waiting for me there.  He’s never gone away, though I sometimes have.

Beach or mountains:  Mountains, perhaps because I grew up on a beach! (Revere, just outside Boston.)

Best Place on Earth:  I know many, but years ago, an inn outside Strasbourg called Les Violettes might have qualified.  Or on a barge moored in a village called St. John de Losne in Burgundy.  Has to be a place with French food at any rate.  And French markets in which to buy the food…

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beverly is the acclaimed author of seven novels, nonfiction essays and many other works. You may find her at her website: www.BeverlySwerling.com or Twitter: @BeverlySwerling.