The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) (58 page)

In Chapter Eighteen, Alasdair arrives with the news that Prince Charles has landed in Scotland with just seven men. As foolhardy as this sounds, it’s true. He actually set out with two ships. One was the
Doutelle,
in which he travelled with his seven men: four Irishmen, two Scots and an Englishman. Three of them were elderly men, and only one of them would play an important role in the rebellion – Colonel John William O’Sullivan. The other ship was the
Elizabeth,
which had 700 soldiers on board, as well as 1500 muskets with ammunition and 1800 broadswords. Unfortunately they were intercepted by an English warship, and a battle ensued in which the
Elizabeth
sustained heavy damage, and had to return to France. Consequently, Prince Charles did land in Scotland with just seven men, although he was not daunted by this.

And finally, also in Chapter Eighteen, I wanted to point out that
The Sofa – A Moral Tale,
was in fact a real book, and the quotation Alex reads out is taken directly from the book. It was published in France in 1742, and was by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. It was a libertine tale, and a lot of the characters were satirical portraits of Parisians of the time – including King Louis XV. The author was temporarily exiled from Paris after its publication, due to this. It was translated into English the same year, so it’s conceivable that Beth would have had a copy.

Julia has been a voracious reader since childhood, using books to escape the miseries of a turbulent adolescence. After leaving university with a degree in English Language and Literature, she spent her twenties trying to be a sensible and responsible person, even going so far as to work for the Civil Service. The book escape came in very useful there too.

And then she gave up trying to conform and resolved to spend the rest of her life living as she wanted to, not as others would like her to. She has since had a variety of jobs, including telesales, teaching and gilding and is currently a transcriber, copy editor and proofreader. In her spare time she is still a voracious reader, and enjoys keeping fit and travelling the world. Life hasn’t always been good, but it has rarely been boring. She lives in rural Wales with her cat Constantine, and her wonderful partner sensibly lives four miles away in the next village.

Now she has decided that rather than just escape into other people’s books, she would actually quite like to create some of her own, in the hopes that people will enjoy reading them as much as she does writing them.

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