Patricia M Osborne

Introducing the Main Characters in The Oath

Who is Françoise Angélique Dubois?

Françoise is one of the main protagonists in The Oath.

She was born on 23^rd March 1895 at Vue de Jardin in Penketh, a fictional village in France.  

She’s a stunning looker with gorgeous emerald eyes and shining long chestnut brown hair that runs loose and wild when blowing in the wind. 

When Françoise’s not running carefree through cowslip, she likes to spend time with her best friend, Geneviève, sharing secrets while embroidering cushions.

Françoise’s family are close-knit, with her parents still very much in love. Françoise hopes to find this same kind of happiness when her time comes to take a husband.

Her dreams are shattered on her seventeenth birthday when Papa announces Playtime is over. Seventeen is old enough to wed and bear a child.

Françoise is bound by a one-hundred-year oath, and although devastated when she sets sail for England with her elder brother André for company, she tries to look on it as a new adventure and hopes she’ll find the same love and happiness with her new husband as her parents share.

Who is Tilly?

The second narrator is Matilda Ann Greenwood known as Tilly. Tilly is English and works in service as a maid at Highwood Hall, the Dubois residence. She shares a room with her best friend Daisy.

Tilly is also a looker with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s in love with the footman Archie, and refuses to listen to the rumours that he’s a scoundrel and treats girls like dirt.

Tilly misses her home and family and looks forward to days off when she spends time with her mam, elder brother and younger siblings. Her young twin brother and sister get excited when she turns up as Cook always packs Tilly a hamper with special treats. 

On Françoise’s arrival, Tilly is promoted to Lady’s maid. The girls, both of the same age, instantly connect.

Who is Sir Charles Henry William Dubois?

Sir Charles is a handsome baronet and lives at Highwood Hall with his mother, Elizabeth. He has black hair with dark eyes like rich soil. Charles is no more enamoured about fulfilling the one-hundred-year oath than Françoise but he has been told it’s his duty to marry a woman of good breeding who can bear him an heir. However, he has secrets to keep from his bride-to-be.  

Who is André Dubois?

André is Françoise’s elder brother and he’s a bachelor. Like Charles, André is handsome but his hair colouring isn’t as dark as Charles’.

André is caring, affectionate and a protector for his sister. He agrees to stay at Highwood Hall until Françoise is settled, before returning home to France. In the meantime, he attracts the attention of eligible ladies and their mothers in the district as a good catch.

Who is Lady Elizabeth Dubois?

Lady Elizabeth is mother to Charles. She’s a widow and has also lost a child. Elizabeth is slim and elegant. On Françoise and André’s arrival she arranges a celebratory welcome for her future daughter-in-law. Elizabeth is set in her ways and will always defend her son, no matter his behaviour.

Who is Antoinette Dubois?

Antoinette Dubois is known as Maman. She’s the mother of Françoise and André. In looks she’s the complete opposite of Lady Elizabeth. Maman is rounded and shows no sign of elegance. She’s very motherly until something happens to change that. She’s also forgetful, stubborn and old fashioned and refuses to move into the modern world.

Who is Lady Suzanna Astley?

Lady Astley has a good sense of humour. In a lot of ways, she reminds Françoise of Lady Elizabeth due to her tall, slim frame and stylish bearing. Suzanna is in her fifties. She has white hair and is open-minded. Suzanna lives at Hargreaves Hall with her nephew. She is a good friend of Antoinette’s and encourages her to see things in a better light.

Who is Matthew Astley?

Matthew Astley is Lady Astley’s nephew. He’s a complete contrast to Charles Dubois in appearance and nature. Matthew’s blond haired with blue eyes, gentle and thoughtful. He falls in love with Françoise from their first meeting. As an eligible bachelor, Matthew like André, is also under the gaze of mothers looking for a husband for their daughters.

Like what you’ve read? Want to know more or buy a copy? Then go HERE for an early bird price on Kindle of £2:99. Also available to read on Kindle Unlimited

Today Monday 24th July 2023 I celebrate the launch of my fourth novel The Oath. Later on I will share some snippets about my main characters but in the meantime there’s an online TV interview live on Showboat TV where author Judith Barrow asks me some great questions.

If you’d like to see the interview, go to the homepage HERE where it’s available free to view.

My first review for The Oath came through this morning. You can read it HERE

The Oath is up on Kindle at an early bird price of £2.99 (price equivalent in other countries) but that price will go up on 1st August 2023. It’s been set up this way to offer a loyalty price to my family, friends, and followers.
To take the opportunity of a copy at this price – go HERE

If you have Kindle Unlimited, like my family saga trilogy, The Oath can be downloaded FREE.

The Oath is also available in paperback and can be ordered on Amazon or via any good bookstore (brick or online). Alternatively if you pop into your local library the librarian will be happy to order it in.

Watch out later for the snippets about my main characters.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all my followers for their support, not only for today, but every day.

I’m delighted to invite poet, Zoe Brooks, over to Patricia’s Pen for the first time. Zoe has come along to chat about inspiration for Fool’s Paradise (Black Eyes Publishing UK) so without further ado, it’s over to Zoe.

Inspiration

Zoe Brooks

I have written poetry for as long as I can remember – my first published poem was in the local parish magazine when I was 8 years old. Over the years I have written about many subjects: nature features prominently and of course relationships, but there is often an awareness of the larger context – of our place in time and history, of myth, politics and spirituality.

In early 1990, only a few months after the overthrow of communism, I visited Prague with a Czech friend of mine. She had fled her country in 1968 and was returning at last. I found the visit profoundly moving, I was an outsider but could see the city through the mirror of my friend’s eyes, albeit darkly. When we got back to England, I started writing Fool’s Paradise – a long poem for voices about three travellers (one returning to his home city), who are guided by a fool they meet on the way.

As is so often the way, I started with one trigger, but then what I wrote decided to go on a different journey. My friend was a Jungian, and we had been talking about the archetype of the Fool and his journey in myth and folklore. I am a historian by training, so Prague’s history as a place of occasional freedom and recurring oppression featured strongly in my thoughts, and not just Prague and the Czech Republic, but also those other cities and countries for which this is true – most obviously now of course Ukraine. As a result, the city that the Fool and his companions travel to is not Prague (for starters the oppressors are still there), but an imaginary combination of many places. Nor is the journey just physical, but metaphysical, it is ‘a dive into the uncanny’ to quote Fiona Sampson.

Structurally Fool’s Paradise is influenced by the verse plays I performed in as a teenager and have loved ever since, the most influential of which was Louis MacNeice’s Dark Tower. I love writing in a number of voices and with a number of characters. How my poetry sounds is very important to me and writing a verse play is like writing a choral piece rather than a solo. Multiple voices allow for multiple views and tensions, plus of course dramatic and narrative progression.

When I started writing Fool’s Paradise in 1990, it came in a rush, red hot. But it took me until 2021 before I was finished with it and it with me. In the meantime I had made my own journey – for fifteen years I owned a farmhouse in the Czech Republic and spent about half of my time there. I sold the house in Jan 2020. Was that a coincidence? I think not.

About Zoe Brooks

Zoe Brooks’ poetry career began when she was discovered by Michael Horovitz of Poetry Olympics in the 1980s. Following post-natal depression, she stopped writing for three decades. She resumed in 2018, since when she has had two collections published – Owl Unbound (published by Indigo Dreams 2020) and Fool’s Paradise (Black Eyes Publishing 2022). She is currently working on a collection about her time spent in a Czech farmhouse.

Zoe also likes to hear and support other people’s work. As a result she is a leading member of the team at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival.

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Please join me in congratulating Allan Gaw on the launch of his poetry pamphlet Love & Other Diseases published by Seahorse Publications

Love & Other Diseases

Love & Other Diseases, Allan Gaw’s debut poetry collection, was launched by Seahorse Publications this week.  The book has been hailed as ‘a triumph, pushing the boundaries of form and content all the way out’ (Julie McNeill), and its author has been described as ‘a fresh voice in contemporary verse exploring with crafted perception and emotion the connections between self and the things of the world around him’ (Jim Mackintosh).

The collection of 50 poems range from subtle poems of love and loss through to eerie personifications of the diseases that have ravaged humankind.

Order your copy now (free p&p for UK addresses)

About Allan Gaw

Professionally, Allan Gaw worked as a doctor and pathologist for over 30 years. Now he has returned to his first love of writing using his experiences in medicine to fuel both his prose and his poetry. His short stories have won the UK Classical Association Creative Writing Competition, the International Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize and the International Globe Soup 7 day Writing Challenge. Previously, he has had poems published in anthologies by Dreich, Soor Ploom Press and Black Bough Poetry.  Love & Other Diseases is his first collection.

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Thank you to Colin Ward a fellow author who invited me over to his blog for an interview about my books. Fancy a read? Go over to In As Many WORDS HERE

Please join me in congratulating Elizabeth M. Castillo on the launch of her poetry pamphlet Not Quite An Ocean published by Nine Pens.

Not Quite an Ocean by Elizabeth M. Castillo is a paean to the feminine, to motherhood and to the natural world. At once these poems are both unabashed in their celebration of womanhood, and are searing in their unflinching confrontation with darker undercurrents that threaten to break and destroy. The poems in Not Quite an Ocean are beacons, are rallying calls, and are ultimately a roars of strength, pride and hope that cannot be silenced or subdued:

Order your copy from HERE

About Elizabeth M. Castillo

Elizabeth M Castillo is a British-Mauritian poet, writer, workshop teacher, and a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She lives in Paris with her family and two cats, where she runs a variety of different businesses, writes a variety of different things, in a variety of different languages, and under a variety of pen names. In her writing Elizabeth explores the different countries and cultures she grew up with, as well as themes of race & ethnicity, motherhood, womanhood, language, love, loss and grief, and a touch of magical realism. Her writing has been featured in publications and anthologies in the UK, US, Australia, Mexico and the Middle East. Her bilingual, debut collection “Cajoncito: Poems on Love, Loss, y Otras Locuras” is for sale on Amazon, and her debut chapbook “Not Quite an Ocean” is out now with Nine Pens Press

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New Release – The Oath

As this is my 500th blog post, I thought it should be a big announcement. So here it is:-

The Oath is now available to preorder via Amazon Kindle at an early bird price which will increase on 1st August 2023.

The Oath takes the reader on an emotional rollercoaster with its captivating story set in the late Victorian era.  Although heartbreaking, it is also uplifting, both of which may cause the reader to shed a tear or two.

Opening in France on 23rd March 1895, Françoise’s seventeenth birthday, her father announces she’s to leave her homeland and travel to England to marry distant cousin Charles Dubois.

‘Playtime is over. Seventeen is old enough to wed and bear a child.’

Narrators, Francoise and her servant girl, Tilly, defy class boundaries and become close friends.

Both young women have their own story to tell.

Marry the baronet, or vulnerable parents face la prison des pauvres

France 1895 – Seventeen-year-old Françoise abandons her carefree life and sails for England to marry distant cousin Charles Dubois. On arrival she finds her groom aloof and evasive.

Draped in expensive silk brocade, she yearns for her homeland and comfortable gowns, and when she discovers the baronet’s clandestine visits, it is her cheery maid she turns to, her new confidante and friend. 

BETRAYAL – HEARTBREAK – FRIENDSHIP

~~~

The Oath will be released in paperback format on 24th July 2023 and available to buy from Amazon, or ordered from any good bookstore, or requested from the library.

The Oath: A coming of age, historical fiction saga from the author

of House of Grace family saga trilogy.

Preorder The Oath on Amazon Kindle HERE

I’m delighted to welcome poet, Jamie Woods, to Patricia’s Pen. Jamie has come along to blog about his debut poetry collection Rebel Blood Cells. Without further ado, it’s over to Jamie.

Rebel Blood Cells

Jamie Woods

Thanks for having me on your site to talk about my new /debut poetry pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells. Quite a lot of people have said it’s “not an easy read” which is understandable. Not because of the obscure and obtuse use of metaphor or punctuation, but because of the subject matter: cancer and PTSD. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an easy book to write either. I’d much prefer a world where I just carried on wanting to be a writer but not actually writing.

Over the years I’ve had the kind of relationship with writing poetry that you might find in a romcom: brief encounters, a little bit of flirting, staring deep into the eyes and about to lock lips but then get interrupted, oh no there’s a misunderstanding, until finally, finally, something huge and momentous happens and then they kiss and it’s happily ever after.

For me that something huge and momentous was a rare and dangerous form of blood cancer – Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia.

The whole experience was a dizzy blur of a fever dream – both figuratively and literally. I could hardly see, could hardly understand what was happening, I was so very ill and it all happened so quickly. As I started to get better, I tried to write to comprehend what I’d been through. Trauma therapy, late night tearful conversations with my wife, going through my hospital notebooks to find those pockets of clarity I’d scribbled down, all contributing to create a record of sorts.

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This record naturally became poems, and I was able to use the writing and editing process as a form of catharsis and self-expression, because poetry exists in those grey areas, the blank spaces, between the lines and just off the page. My poems were conversations, with myself, my wife, my therapist, a fictional god. None of my experience was black and white. Sometimes I craved the sanctuary of my hospital bed, sometimes I wanted to run away and go… well, anywhere. Sometimes I just didn’t have the energy or willingness to take another round of chemo or whatever drugs they were pumping into me.

I learned a lot about myself, my illness, and the cancer community in putting together this collection. Not every cancer patient is the same – some love to ring the bell to end their treatment, an idea that repulsed me. It turns out I wasn’t alone in feeling this way either, when one of the first poems from Rebel Blood Cells ‘Ring the Bell’ was commended in the Hippocrates Prize and then shared on Twitter by a prominent cancer account.

While the book contains my cancer and my PTSD, it also is home to my heart and my soul, and overall, hope. The hope that may or may not exist, but you cling to anyway. I was lucky enough to make it through, and everyday I am so grateful. Although survivors guilt tends to pop up from time to time. I wish I didn’t have to write it. But I did, and I hope that it gives others comfort and understanding into situations like this.

About Jamie Woods

Jamie Woods is a writer based in Swansea, south Wales. His poetry has been included in Poetry Wales, iamb, Lucent Dreaming, Ink Sweat & Tears and more. All profits from his debut pamphlet Rebel Blood Cells go to the charity Leukaemia Care where he volunteers as ‘poet-in-residence’. 

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A limited number of signed copies, with badges and bookmark can be purchased from the following link
Punkdust.com

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Please join me in congratulating poet, Samantha Terrell on the launch of her brand new poetry collection, Confronting The Elements. (JC STUDIO Press)

Confronting The Elements

Confronting the Elements is a poetry collection by American poet, Samantha Terrell, which pays tribute to three of the four natural elements – fire, earth, and air – whilst exploring the spiritual and social impacts of the human relationship with the world around us. Confronting the Elements features all original (non-AI) cover art and watercolor illustrations by professional Scottish artist, Jane Cornwell. It follows Terrell and Cornwell’s collaborative illustrated chapbook, Keeping Afloat (2021), which showcases the fourth element – water.

Where to BUY

Amazon UK

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About Samantha Terrell

Samantha Terrell is an internationally published poet whose books have received five-star reviews and accolades from her peers. Her poetry emphasizes self-awareness as a means to social awareness and can be found in:  Dissident Voice, Dove Tales, Green Ink Poetry, In Parentheses, Misfit Magazine, Nine Cloud Journal, Paddler Press, Poetry Quarterly, Red Weather, and many other fine publications. Terrell is a wife, mother, and former manager in the nonprofit sector who writes from her home in upstate New York. Find her online at:  http://www.samanthaterrell.com and on Instagram @honestypoetrybysamantha

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Samantha is holding a launch event online, via Zoom, this evening at 8:00pm. If you would like an invite please register HERE

I’m delighted to invite Annick Yerem, a fellow Hedgehog Poetry Press poet, over to Patricia’s Pen for the first time. Annick is not only a poet but also founder of a new poetry press. She is here to tell you more about her writing so without further ado, it’s over to Annick.

My Writing

Annick Yerem

Thank you so much for inviting me, Patricia!

Writing found me again at the end of 2019. The year before, I had started taking care of my parents, who had both become very ill. The plan was originally to write a book about the German care system, how to apply for things, very matter-of-fact. But after one session with Nancy Wigglesworth, a wonderful coach, there was suddenly a poem in my head, called Things I Cannot Tell My Children. It was also the first time I wrote in English, not in German. I ended up on Twitter early 2020, made videos of readings and met Tanya Shadrick and Ankh Spice, the best mentors I could have hoped for.

The writing of my book, St Eisenberg and The Sunshine Bus, wasn´t a conscious decision at first, but most of the poems I wrote were about my father and it helped me to brave the situation which was heartbreaking and tragic. So at some point, I decided to tell a part of his story with this book and when The Hedgehog Poetry Press agreed to publish it, things fell into place. My father died in 2020, the book was published in 2022. It is more or less his eulogy.

To start the whole writing process again, which in my case is not stringent, but very haphazard, has meant a lot more than the writing itself. As a chronically ill person, I had become quite isolated where I live and the writing and what came with, changed all that in the course of the last three years. To be part of a community, to create something out of what felt hopeless and sad, has meant the world to me.

It also gave me the courage not only to write my book, but to found Sídhe Press in order to promote and lift up other poets’ work. It is something that I have found do-able as I can go ahead at my own pace. I have been fortunate to work with fantastic co-editors and poets like Mo Schoenfeld, Larissa Reid and Sarah Connor, with many more like Sue Finch to come. In 2020, I decided to walk through every door that opened for me, to try out everything and not be worried about failure, however that may be defined.

This has meant that at times, I have overwhelmed myself a little, but most of the time, it has been life-enhancing and so enriching. People can be dismissive about social media and tell you it´s not real. But we are, of course, real people and we can make real connections there that become part of our fabric and of what we work with and what we write about.

Looking at my bookshelves now fills me with immense joy: all these amazing people I have met that have entered my formerly solitary existence, all these words that they have given to me and that I have hopefully given to them. It is quite something to be a part of that.

About Annick Yerem

Annick Yerem is a German/ Scottish poet based in Berlin. She has an adult son and a senior dog. Annick has been published in wonderful places like iamb, The Dirigible Ballon, River Mouth Review, Eat The Storms, Open Collab and Anti-Heroin Chic. Her book, St. Eisenberg and the Sunshine Bus, was published in 2022 with Hedgehog Press UK. She is a member of the Flaming Flower Society and the EIC of Sídhe Press. Annick is a renowned cake spy.

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