P R Burrell

I was born and grew up in a medium-sized town, not far from London, in what I suppose was a typical middle-class family, with my three brothers. I ‘found’ books when I was about ten and from then on I was an avid reader of fiction (of almost all genres) and non-fiction. At school, essay writing was never a chore to me - it just enabled my imagination let rip. In my teens I wrote a lot of poetry and later, some short stories, but it wasn't until I was in my forties, when I had a book shop, that I began writing full-length novels. I was also lecturing in colleges, part-time, at the same time.

After a varied career in industry and education I am now retired so I've had more time to write.

Though there was some interest from well-known publishers in my early books none of the conventional publishers 'bit the bullet' to offer a deal to publish my books so when Kindle came along I made the decision to self-publish my books as eBooks. This also gave me control over the whole creative writing process, which also appealed to me; being something of a control freak.

The first book I published as an Amazon Kindle eBook was the crime novel 'Cut' which became the first part of a series of the 'Max Eden Crime' series, set in and around Nuneaton, a town in the east Midlands of England. Each book in the series has a crime theme loosely described by the one word title of each book and featuring the unconventional, black, lesbian, detective, Max (Maxine) Eden as she rises through the ranks, experiencing professional and personal problems due to taking on difficult and complex cases, sometimes complicated further by her unconventional love-life. Currently there are seven books in the Eden Crime series: ‘Cut’, ‘Blag’, ‘Throttle’, ‘Burnt’, ‘Missing’, ‘Shot’ and ‘Reckless’.

I didn’t want to have as my protagonist the usual grumpy, male, middle-aged, detective but took on the challenge of writing from a woman’s point of view. Sammy Davis Jr, a popular singer in the 1950s and 1960s and a member of Sinatra’s ‘Rat Pack’, said that he drew prejudice not only because he was black but also because he was Jewish. Someone pointed out at the time that at least he wasn’t a woman. I would add to that that he also wasn’t Gay. Max is the daughter of Ethiopian Jews (the so called ‘Lost Tribe of Israel’) so is also an immigrant.

My other fiction books are:

'Stormy Monday': a biographical ode to the blues band era of my teens but with a noir twist.

‘Sword of Fire’: a previously unknown Muslim Fundamentalist is developing a new and potent weapon of destruction and an international team is tasked with combating this threat.

‘Five Days in September: The Invasion of England 1940’: is the story of how the German invasion of England could have happened and the consequences for two boys and a girl, seventeen year old friends, who are actively involved in the desperate defence of the coast in the south of England, between Folkestone and Dover and of one young German SS officer who becomes inextricably and fatally linked to the three friends.

I have also published what I would call a ‘romance’ book under the pen name of Christie Chandler. ‘Changed Eyes’ based on some of the same material used in my first Max Eden book, ‘Cut’, but edited and extended. It is not just a crime book but the story of a young woman’s quest for love and romance during a period of two weeks of World War Two. Both of these books draw on material in Emma Smith’s book ‘Maiden Trip’, an autobiography about three girls on war work working the canal boats between London and Birmingham. I have also drawn on books written by some of the other 'canal' girls and on the books of L. T. C. Rolt.

The other 'romance' book I have published as Christie Chandler is 'Blood Fire and Water' set in Ireland in the early 1800s and is more of a pure romance story but with a backgound of the industrial revolution.

The six books of ‘Lingard’s Follies’ are based on Joseph Conrad’s ‘Eastern’ books and short stories. I have edited, revised, re-imagined and corrected Conrad’s stories with much new material into a series of six books spanning the life of Captain Tom Lingard in the Eastern Archipelago.

Why ‘Lingard’s Follies’? Well, though Lingard always had good intentions in his various dealings with people and in his adventures and ventures, things didn’t always work out in quite the way he hoped they would; these were his ‘follies’.

The six books in this series are:

Book 1: Freya & Karain (Based on Conrad’s ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’ and ‘Karain’ and including an Introduction to the series)

Book 2: The Rescue (Based on Conrad’s ‘The Rescue: A Romance of the Shallows’)

Book 3: Almayer and the Outcast (Based on Conrad’s The first part of ‘Almayer’s Folly’ and all of ‘Outcast of the Islands’ and some of ‘Typhoon’)

Book 4: Almayer’s Gold (Based on Conrad’s ‘The Lagoon’ and the second part of ‘Almayer’s Folly’)

Book 5: Tuan Jim (Based on Conrad’s ‘Lord Jim’)

Book 6: End of His Tether (Based on Conrad’s ‘The End of the Tether’)

Three of the books are quite short (fifty to sixty thousand words) namely: ‘Freya & Karain’, ‘Almayer’s Gold’ and ‘End of His Tether’. The other three books are long (one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty words). All the books are offered at a low price in the Kindle store with the idea this will provide me (if anybody purchases them!) with some recompense for my efforts in producing these stories.

I have loved reading and re-reading Conrad’s stories, particularly the ‘Eastern’ books and short stories, but they also annoyed me! His prose style is sometimes difficult with never-ending, complicated sentences and paragraphs and ‘imbedded’ speech. I have updated the punctuation and grammar, where possible, taken out some passages, usually to make the modified plot-lines fit, altered the text to make it more understandable and I have ‘broken out’ speech, all in an attempt to make the stories more readable. Probably the most important change (in most of the books) is that I have converted them to a ‘Third-person limited omniscient’ point of view. This was necessary to provide a continuous story of Lingard’s life. Finally, I have not used chapters to break up the text as I think chapters are superfluous. I have merely used blank lines to signify changes of scene or time. In Conrad’s books there are so many flashbacks and flash-forwards and changes of points of view that this seemed to be the best scheme for organising the text.

Why have I done all this? It is simply that I had to do it! I haven’t plagiarised these stories to pass them off as something they are not but merely present them as alternative versions. If anybody enjoys reading them, all well and good, I certainly enjoyed rewriting them. And if anybody takes exception to what I have done, that too, is all well and good. After all, I’m not forcing you to like them or even to read them! I can see the distinguished and honourable members of the Conrad Society throwing up their arms in horror, and maybe Conrad himself turning over a few times in his grave!

I thought that Conrad’s first two books: ‘Almayer’s Folly’ and ‘The Outcast of the Islands’ overlapped each other so much that they could almost be made into one, very long, book. I decided that the first part of ‘Almayer’s Folly’ and most of ‘The Outcast of the Islands’ could be one book i.e. ‘Almayer and the Outcast’. I have included some of the short story ‘Typhoon’ in this book. The second part of ‘Almayer’s Folly’ I have produced as ‘Almayer’s Gold’ and this also includes the short story: ‘The Lagoon’. Almayer also features in the revised ‘Lord Jim’ (‘Tuan Jim’).

The ending of ‘Freya of the Seven Isles’ I thought, was far too sad! As my granddaughter is named Freya I wanted something a bit more cheerful. There was also the problem that I needed Lingard to have a child and for him then to be a widower for the other stories to work so, in my version, Freya and Lingard lived happily, at least, for a few years! And this had to be the first book in the series.

It must be appreciated that I had to develop a comprehensive time-line for my version of the stories, and it had to fit in with actual history. After a good deal of thought and research this did fall into place quite neatly.

My non-fiction books are published under my full name, Paul Burrell, and are the accounts of two long distance, 1,000 miles plus, cycling trips, mainly along the the rivers and canals of France. These books are Paul's Mille Miglia and Paul's Mille Miglia (Part Deux).

All the above mentioned books are available as Kindle eBooks.