Francesca and Richard: No Other Gods

The Napoleonic wars are over and 'the era of good feelings' has begun in America. But will the lives of ordinary people be any better?

"Francesca and Richard" is a piece of historical fiction set in the early 19th century. It is a book about love, friendship, family and ideas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the passionate characters travel many hundreds of miles in pursuit of their dreams. The story builds across a period of ten months, with the most dramatic events falling in the holiday season of the year 1817.

This debut novel traces the experiences of a rich cast of characters, such as the angry, artistic Richard, the feisty, intellectual Francesca, the villainous, but plausible Pierre, the calm, forgiving Jane and the gentle, much-put-upon Laura, through a vital period in their lives. Real historical personalities such as the American Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, and sometime British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, make cameo appearances. After several setbacks and misunderstandings, Francesca and Richard set aside their many differences about religion and politics, only to find that the plans and loyalties of others cannot always be wished away so easily.

Using elements drawn from the thriller, the romance and the 'novel of ideas' traditions, and particularly inspired by the writings of Winston Graham, George Eliot and Graham Greene, Clive Mason-Hall's first book has been written in a deliberately 'retro' and 'middlebrow' style. A sequel is a definite possibility

"Francesca was beautiful, and she knew that she was beautiful. But good fortune is rarely distributed without at least some compensatory difficulties, and she gazed out over the great expanse of the Mississippi River, through dark brown eyes that had seen many hardships over the last few years. As she played with one of her long ringlets in an absent-minded fashion, she recalled a quotation from the lecture that seemed surprisingly apposite;

The earth will become flat, with neither hills nor dales,

There will be neither mountains nor ridges, nor pits, neither high ground nor low." (From Chapter Four)

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