Deception.  Jazz.  Sabotage.  Betrayal. Aided by her resourceful Turkish admirer, Kerem Solak, Phoebe tracks her mother’s murderer in Paris. But when war erupts, what is more important? Revenge or romance? War, however, has little respect for choice, especially once Europe flounders in the mire of Nazism. And when Phoebe encounters […]

Outside Heaven's Sway is Underway!

Today, I cleaned my workspace. It feels like years since I properly cleaned my workspace, judging from the arachnid condominium being constructed between my bureau and the wall. The thick dust, random papers (superannuation letters, excerpts from Dante, an article on gold prices in Turkey in World War II), outmoded […]

Refreshing my Workspace

Marc Chagall, The White Crucifixion 1938
It’s been over a year since the release of By Violence Unavenged – a year of death, heatwaves, fires, floods, injuries, illness, job loss, pestilence, and house renovations. I have had neither time nor energy to write. Yesterday, all that changed. I spent an quiet hour in a cafe and […]

Writing Outside Heaven’s Sway

“Salzburg, Austria, in the last golden days of the ’30s.” That is how director William Wyler begins his 1965 film of The Sound of Music; and it equally describes the 1937 Vienna of By Violence Unavenged. Here for your enjoyment are some songs and music from the story and the […]

Listen to music from By Violence Unavenged

Annette and Gray
Gray Connolly launches By Violence Unavenged, Annette Young’s mighty sequel to A Distant Prospect, set in Sydney and Vienna between the two World Wars. Gray Connolly is a Barrister, Writer and War Veteran, and a lecturer and examiner in Australian Constitutional Law. Gray is a panelist for ABC radio and […]

Gray Connolly to launch By Violence Unavenged 15 June 2019

PREORDER BY VIOLENCE UNAVENGED now at http://annetteyoung.net/books/about-the-books/ OneMoreChapter #BVUmemes Pbk A$34.95, Hbk A$49.95 including author dedication by Annette Young and free postage to Australia. 474 pages, 172k words, 13-14 hours. (Also Kindle, Kobo, and Google Play.)

Preorders are OPEN!

It’s been months since I’ve posted; mainly because I’ve been at hammer and tongs finishing By Violence Unavenged. Now, quite frankly, I’m terrified. Terrified the new book is going to flop. Terrified at coming out of my shell to peddle my wares. Terrified of deadlines. Terrified of writing Volume Two, […]

Leech Gathering #12: And so, from hour to hour…

It started with Sporky, a flying purple giraffe. Since she was 3, Annette Young has had imaginary friends, most of whom are human; and over the years, those friends have been her solace. That they should make their way into novels, however, was unimaginable. Annette first wanted to be an […]

About the Author

By Violence Unavenged is finished! That is, it’s in a state fit enough to be read by someone other than the author. I’ve gone over the manuscript dozens of times, culling words, piecing the plot, developing characters and settings; honing, honing, honing… Readers… that crowd of friendly, intelligent aliens fighting […]

Blood Letting #2: I know there’s no beryllium sphere…Calling Discerning ...

I like a good red. A half-glass of the smoothest pinot-noir, sipped slow, flavouring long and pleasant conversation, is a joy. But, like Hemingway, to whom the drunk and sober maxim of my title is wrongly attributed (apparently Peter De Vries holds claim), and who wrote sober, despite being a […]

Write Drunk, Edit Sober: Blood Letting #1

By Violence Unavenged nears completion! It feels a bit like rehearsing a new play. The script is written (mostly!); lines mastered; costumes, sets, and props gathered and made; lighting guys are tinkering. Everyone’s abuzz. Just for fun, the director calls the actors together and has them take a bow to celebrate […]

Curtain Calls: Leech Gathering #11

What is the inspiration behind the title, By Violence Unavenged? Titles are always difficult. How does one best capture the subject, the spirit, and the theme of a book in a few well-chosen words? The Big Three – the Bible, Dante, and Shakespeare – are always good sources, particularly when one’s […]

What’s with the title?: Leech Gathering #10

  The past few weeks have been spent rewriting Part One. Five chapters revised and expanded, a total of 10,648 words. Total words in Part One 32,765, so far, aiming for 50,000, making By Violence Unavenged a healthy 150,000 word tome.

Weekly Word Count

Winston Churchill once said, ‘Diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths without giving offence.’ The challenge in By Violence Unavenged and its later volumes is describing and creating scenes and characters which are less than pleasant, yet readable. It also involves drawing on unhappy and disturbing experiences from my own […]

The Ugly Truth: Leech Gathering #9

Hitler Arrives in Vienna March 13, 1938.
How do you summarise By Violence Unavenged in 100 words or less? Here’s one draft: ‘I will never forgive … I would have her hang. And if I had to hang her myself, I would.’ Phoebe Raye fulfills her father’s dreams and visits Vienna. Her travel plans, however, conceal her […]

I will never forgive : Leech Gathering #8

My original intention was for In the Hearts of Kings to be a publisher-friendly, economically written 70-100,000 words. No chance of that. It’s become a trilogy, with each volume being separately published, By Violence Unavenged being the first. Today’s writing session ended with a reconsideration of structure. By Violence Unavenged has fallen comfortably […]

Divide and Conquer?: Leech Gathering #7

One of the challenges of By Violence Unavenged has been make the world of 1930s Vienna accessible to a non-German speaking reader. Music, and song in particular, has proved an invaluable medium. Austrians love to sing, so the inclusion of song is essential in bringing that culture to life. By Violence […]

Handy Music. Leech Gathering #6

This week’s Shelfie features a selection of works written between 1900 and 1945 by Austrian and German writers, works which provide insight into the zeitgeist, as well as communicate historical and social details, words, and expressions – all valuable for creating character and setting. They were my staple reading when […]

Capturing the Zeitgeist: Sunday Shelfie, 10 September 2017

In 2013, having decided to shift narrators from Lucy Straughan in A Distant Prospect to Phoebe Raye in By Violence Unavenged, I hoped to avoid writing complex emotional analysis; and instead developed a detached, falsely dispassionate narrator in an attempt to communicate a complicated backstory. What was I thinking? Meanwhile, the little […]

Heeding the Little Voice: Leech Gathering #5