David Ebsworth

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David Ebsworth

Goodreads Author


Born
in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
June 17, 1949

Website

Twitter

Genre

Influences

Member Since
March 2012

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David Ebsworth is the pen name of writer, Dave McCall, a former negotiator and Regional Secretary for Britain's Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool (UK) but has lived since 1980 in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife, Ann. Following their retirement in 2008, the couple have spent about six months of each year in southern Spain. Dave began to write seriously in the following year, 2009. ...more

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David Ebsworth I enjoy telling stories that I wish somebody else had written for me but which have so far been overlooked. They are therefore generally set outside t…moreI enjoy telling stories that I wish somebody else had written for me but which have so far been overlooked. They are therefore generally set outside the most “popular” periods of historical fiction. Yet, with the bicentenary of Waterloo coming up – and the Napoleonic era remaining one of my personal favourite periods of history – it was inevitable that I would be drawn towards setting my fourth book around this most famous and important of battles.(less)
David Ebsworth It was really inspired when I read a factual account of French Napoleonic cantinière, Madeleine Kintelberger, who served with Bonaparte’s 7th Hussars …moreIt was really inspired when I read a factual account of French Napoleonic cantinière, Madeleine Kintelberger, who served with Bonaparte’s 7th Hussars during the Austerlitz campaign and was caught up in fighting against the Russian Cossacks while protecting her children who were also with her on the battlefield. Her husband had been killed by cannon fire and Madeleine held off the Cossacks with a sword that she had picked up, losing her own right arm in the process, being slashed and speared by lances on several occasions, and being shot in each leg. She was pregnant with twins at the time. The Russians took her prisoner and she eventually returned to France with her children, where she was received in person by the Emperor and awarded a military pension. Yet the most astonishing aspect of all this was the fact that Madeleine was simply one of hundreds of women serving in such positions in the French army’s front lines, many of them with similar incredible tales and yet largely ignored in fiction and non-fiction alike. Madeleine did not serve at Waterloo, but other cantinières, like Thérèse Jourdan and Marie Tête-du-Bois certainly did so.

And then, almost immediately afterwards, I also came across the real-life exploits of Marie-Thérèse Figueur who had joined the French revolutionary army in 1793 in her own right as a woman and who served with distinction in various Dragoon regiments through most of Bonaparte’s major campaigns until 1814 when she retired and opened a table d’hôte restaurant in Paris. Once again, her story was not particularly unusual. She also did not fight at Waterloo but we know, for example, that at least one or two women soldiers died on the battlefield – including the unidentified “beautiful” woman whose body was found in the aftermath of the fight by Volunteer Charles Smith of the 95th Rifles.

So the proposition was simple. What if two fictional women, but based on the real-life characters of Kintelberger and Figueur, were brought together by something more than a simple twist of fate during Bonaparte’s final campaign, in June 1815, that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo? And what if that “something” had a mystical element that would have been very typical of the age’s flirtations between the scientific and the spiritual?
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More books by David Ebsworth…

Death Along The Dee

Well, given the success of last year's novel, Blood Among The Threads, I was persuaded to write a sequel.

Yes, Alfred and Ettie Palmer are back for another stunning standalone Victorian mystery.

Wrexham, 1884. Eight years earlier they’d been warned never again to interfere with police business. But it seems their skills are needed once more. A body deliberately drowned but left abandoned on the ban Read more of this blog post »
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The Doubtful Diaries of Wic... Mistress Yale's Diaries, Th... Wicked Mistress Yale, The P...
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Blood Among the Threads by David Ebsworth
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Moonlight and Mischief by Molly Fitz
"Now what?

"The house seemed to have a mind of its own, but I was determined to prove that I was stronger than any rumors, superstitions, or ghost stories."

This, in true Molly Fitz/ Trixie Silvertale fashion is a great story. Sydney,a high end advertis" Read more of this review »
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Banquet of Beggars by Chris   Lloyd
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Un Jeune Homme Chantait! Eddie Giral is a badly conflicted Maigret trying to survive in Occupied Paris. I just love Chris Lloyd's writing and, with my own passion for wartime Paris, this is one of the novels I've enjoyed most in 2024. Looking forward ...more
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Last Night at Villa Lucia by Simon McCleave
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The perfect holiday read, particularly if you happen to be in Tuscany. Simon at his very best.
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The Lost Girls of Willowbrook by Ellen Marie Wiseman
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The often harrowing tale of fictional characters set against the horrific and true background story of Willowbrook. Incredibly researched and wonderfully written. I see the mockery and the lack of humanity by "politicians" like Trump and J.D. Vance t ...more
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April in Spain by John Banville
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Quotes by David Ebsworth  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Is it not fear that drives atrocity? It is natural enough to hate our enemies. Of course it is. How could anybody kill another person unless they had learned to hate them? But when you are afraid of them too, terrified by them rather, isn’t that when atrocity begins? Scared beyond reason. We call it the Terror always. For you it’s the Red Terror. For the Republicans it’s the White Terror. But actually the real terror is in the hearts of those who commit the atrocity.”
David Ebsworth, The Assassin's Mark: A Novel of the Spanish Civil War

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Cozy Mysteries : This topic has been closed to new comments. Mystery ABC's, Round 5 6766 350 May 14, 2020 09:27PM  
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
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message 3: by David

David Ebsworth Anybody got time to vote for Marianne on these Listopia pages???? If so, many thanks
https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/23643689


message 2: by Dale

Dale Thele David, thanx for accepting my friend request :)


message 1: by David

David Ebsworth Oh, good news. The Jacobites' Apprentice has reached Number 5 in the Waterstones' Best sellers chart - well, in Wrexham anyway!! You've got to start SOMEWHERE!


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