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Chris Oswald
Ghostwriter & Book Developer - Fiction, non-fiction, memoir.
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The Stuff of Heroes is the first in the Semblance of Order trilogy, exploring the close way in which order and chaos march together with humans. The setting is 1960s Britain, but a Britain taken over by Germany during the war which ended after a year or so. The female protagonist, Georgia, is the teen, highly privileged daughter of the sector commander, a man very much on the up in German aristocratic circles. Mark, a British individual and an academic, is released from prison to tutor this headstrong, precocious seventeen-year-old. The idea stemmed from reading about the swing kids in 1930s Germany and relating that to the American-generated blues and rock movement of the 1960s. If jazz was prohibited, what would they make of rock and roll? But, the first book in the trilogy is a lot more about Georgia and how she adapts to the world around her and how her perspective changes so radically. I think of it as dystopia, thriller and 'what-if' history all rolled into one. Oh, and it also has a large dose of romance because that's just me.
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This is a book that combines history with a modern thriller. I had the quaint idea years ago that perhaps the USA never actually achieved independence, not because they did not win the fight, but because sufficient numbers of the the founding fathers were too involved with Britain to let the connection go. Then, the second half, the modern element, came to me when I read about a woman given an impossibly long prison sentence and it set me wondering how people cope with a forty year sentence. The dual protagonist in this novel, Dakota, coped with it by studying hard for the education she had hoped to pursue and by staying true to herself. The connection between the two stories isn't just the research she was doing for her masters, but also the concept of redemption, that people are a curious mixture of good and bad and that bad people can do good things, just as good people can do bad. One reader said, "I couldn't put it down, not even for the superbowl.' I hope you'll try it and see for yourself.
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Being passionate about history, I decided to write a series set in my local area in a period often overlooked by other writers. The late 17th Century in Britain was an incredibly important time when our modern nation was forged. There is no shortage of drama and excitement starting with the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 and continuing through the Glorious Rebellion, the Siege of Londonderry, the Battle of the Boyne and on to the Massacre at Glencoe - the worst example of state terrorism against its citizens in British history. These are over five books released to date. Future books will cover the Marlborough Wars, the rapid growth of colonies and the union with Scotland. Plenty more to write about!
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Lifequake - a client asked me to do a complete structural edit of her account of fighting desperately against an immovable bureaucracy with love trying to cope with the awful horrors of severe mental illness. A nation state that should have been there to help, turned its back on human fragility, causing a lifequake that shook them to the very foundations of the human spirit.
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