The Isle of Wight is jam-packed with interesting, creative people and every so often we get to hear about some of their work.
A regular contributor to discussions through OnTheWight, Mark Francis, is an Isle of Wight writer who has self-published his novels.
His first is called Edmund Godfrey & the Fanatiques Creed, set entirely in London. Mark’s second novel, Edmund Godfrey & the Terror of Terrors, is set in London, but also on a slave ship and in the Isle of Wight.
Marks explains,
“Edmund Godfrey was a Westminster magistrate who was murdered in 1678 aged 57 (it’s a difficult age), but I have fictionalised the unknown part of his life via the fiction of having discovered his “papers of dangerous consequence” (referred to in the investigation in 1679 by the House of Lords) contained in his chest kept at “the Coffee Man’s at Swan’s Yard” – later referred to as “giving the truest picture of the secret part of King Charles’ Reign”
“In my first book he investigates a murder and infiltrates a gang of terrorists who (in 1661) capture St Paul’s Cathedral and take on the Army – almost defeating them (this really happened).
“The second book Edmund Godfrey & the Terror of Terrors is (spoiler alert) about his investigation into a series of murders in London. It turns out that these are the former members of a plot against Cromwell, but half have accepted money from the Dutch to carry on & the others who did not are systematically killed off.
“The plotters entrap Godfrey & sell him into slavery in Barbados. He organises a slave mutiny in the Channel and the ship is wrecked at Bembridge, where the plotters have secretly built & launched a clockwork submarine (with the unwitting help of Robert Hooke) to attack the first Spithead Review of 1662.”
Mark has also written more novels which he’s uploaded to Feedaread & Kindle. These are “The Monkey Duchess”, “The Devil’s Trumpet” and “A Plague of Shadows” – which returns to the Isle of Wight in flashbacks when Godfrey was involved with Charles I’s imprisonment.
Find out more about Mark Francis and his novels by visiting his Website.
