At first glance, the worlds of veterinary medicine and literature might seem as far apart as any two endeavours could be.

Veterinary medicine is about facts. Animals get sick for a reason and it is the job of a veterinarian to first find the cause of the illness and then decide on the best treatment. Very little of what a vet does is about opinion. We are usually right or wrong when we go about our work. Most of the questions that we are asked have one correct answer.

Writers, especially writers of fiction live in a different world. When we write, intentionally or not, our work is filled with our opinions. The best writing tells about the world not as fact but as we understand it.

Writing and veterinary medicine also tend to attract different types of people. Anyone who starts into clinical veterinary medicine soon discovers that a critical part of the job is interacting with people. The vet who can’t relate to his or her clients is at a serious disadvantage in their efforts to help animals.

In order to write seriously, a writer must be happy to be alone. As romantic as the life of a writer may seem, it consists largely of sitting by themselves in a room in front of a computer, typewriter or pad of paper. The solitary nature of the job seems to be a big draw to many writers. Writers often tend to be introverts who are happy writing without distraction.

So why would a veterinarian ever want to be a writer?

Writing is about communicating. Writers have a story or an idea and a desire to share that story or idea with others. People who write well are those who can clearly show things to others.

Perhaps the best veterinarians have this same skill that writers have. A vet who can explain problems and solutions to owners will be more successful than one who cannot.

It makes sense that veterinarians who enjoy communicating and do it well might be drawn to writing.

Stephen King in his wonderful book “On Writing” says that there are two requirements for a good book. The author needs a good story and must be able to tell it well. Just about every veterinarian ha

s a good story, most people are interested in animals and their treatment. For the vet who can tell these stories well there is a huge opportunity to write successfully.

Throughout my career as a veterinarian people suggested that I should write a book about my experiences. I’m sure that vets across the world are given the same advice. In many people’s eyes, the life of a vet is a fascinating one and for those who can and love to communicate there is opportunity to produce enthralling books.

You can find Andrew’s books on this website…

under Veterinary Nonfiction and Memoir tabs and on our Home Page!

Meet Andrew

Andrew Peacock’s lifelong fascination with animals began during summer holidays spent with the dog and cattle on his grandparents’ farm. Summer jobs working with the provincial government later introduced him to the world of wildlife. He completed an undergraduate degree at Trent University and then a veterinary degree at the University of Guelph. Immediately after graduating from Guelph he moved into solo practice on the island of Newfoundland off the east coast of Canada. The job promised work with the usual complement of farm animal patients – cows, horses, pigs, goats and chickens. He soon found himself working with species as diverse as bald eagles, moose, humpback whales, lynx and ostriches.

Outside of vet work Andrew has enjoyed a variety of extra-veterinary activities. Along with enjoying photography, kayaking, triathlons and camping, he holds a third degree black belt in Kenpo Karate and has run the Boston marathon.

Find out more about Andrew on his Author page here

Find Andrew’s first book here

Thank you so much for blogging with us today, Andrew, and thanks so much to you readers for visiting! Join our HNVB Book Club and our HNVB Blog via the forms in the right sidebar to keep in touch!

Happy riding and vetting!

xx

Lizzi Tremayne

Horse Sense: Learned the Hard Way

My qualifications for writing about horses are ten years as a Riding for the Disabled mum, five as a Pony Club mum, and seven as the reluctant care-taker of one or more obstreperous ponies.

Yet I write Regencies, and in Regency times, gentlemen were as obsessed with their horses as today’s men are with their cars or motorbikes.

In fact, in two of my books, including the latest release, the hero breeds horses for sale.

Which meant I had a lot to learn. I knew the smell of wet pony, and the tricks it can get up to when it doesn’t want the bridle and saddle. That was a start.

Many blog posts, library books, video clips, websites, and questions to friends later, I still think that one end bites and the other kicks.

But I’m slightly more confident about sending my horse-mad heroes out into the wide world.

Horse Sense: from the Middle East to England

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Lord Sutton breeds Turkmen horses he and his family have brought from their home in the Kopet Dag mountains (northeast of Iran). Lord Sutton’s Turkmens, a predecessor of today’s Ahkal Teke, arrived in England well after the heyday of what they then called the orientals, or hot bloods.

Finer boned, thinner skinned, faster, and more spirited than the European horses (known then as cold bloods), the imports from Turkey, Persia, and middle Asia fascinated the English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the two lines came the warm bloods, direct ancestors of today’s thoroughbreds. Indeed, the thoroughbred stud book was founded in the late eighteenth century (for horses intended for racing) and records all English Thoroughbred breeding even today.

A thoroughbred was a horse whose birth and lineage was recorded in the book. Other horses with the same breeding not intended for racing were known simply as ‘bloods’.

If you wanted to sell, or to buy, a horse, you might go to a local horse fair. Or, if you lived in London, you’d drop down to Tattersall’s on Hyde Park Corner.

It had been founded in 1766 by a former groom of the Duke of Kingston, and held auctions every Monday and on Thursdays during the Season. Tattersall’s charged a small commission on each sale, but also charged both buyers and sellers for stabling.

You could buy horses, carriages, hounds, harnesses — whatever a gentleman (or his lady, but ladies did NOT go to Tattersall’s) needed.

And in Regency times, gentlemen visited on other days to place a bet on an upcoming race, or just to meet and chat.

The Jockey Club met there, and moved with it to a later London location and then to Newmarket. Tattersall’s is still a leading bloodstock auctioneer, and still in Newmarket.

Horse Sense: England’s Cavalry

My hero in A Raging Madness had been a cavalry officer. Britain had no formal studs for breeding war horses. Instead, they bought their horses from civilian breeders.

This meant the British cavalry rode horses bred to be hunters, race horses, and carriage horses—usually thoroughbreds or thoroughbred crosses. Each colonel bought the horses for his own regiment.

In 1795, the regulations established a budget of thirty pounds for a light mount and forty for a heavy mount. This budget didn’t change for the rest of the war with France, despite wartime shortages.

Here Alex is telling his brother his plan:

“Father says you are planning to breed horses. For the army, Alex? Racing? What’s your plan?”

“Carriage and riding horses, we thought. I know more about training war horses, of course, but to breed them to be torn apart for the sins of men? I don’t have the heart for it. And there’s always a market for a good horse.”

Alex buys his first stallion from another cavalry office, Gil Rutledge, who is hero of The Realm of Silence (the third novel in The Golden Redepenning series).

Horse Sense for Authors and Seekers

Geri Walton tells us about work horses, especially the heavy breeds. https://www.geriwalton.com/work-horses-in-the-regency-era/

Regency Redingote explains the origins of the term ‘blood horse’, and the pedigree of the General Stud Book. https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-english-blood-horse/

Regency Writing has a useful article on housing horses, and the work of a stable. http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-horse.html

Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink explains the many different uses of the horse in Regency England. https://shannondonnelly.com/2011/07/28/the-regency-horse-world/ This article also describes common carriage types, side saddles and riding habits.

A Raging Madness

Extract

Fear pierced the fog, and drove Ella across the carriage way and into the shrubbery beyond. The soft rain of the past few days had left branches laden with moisture, and puddles and mud underfoot. Every part of her not covered by the woollen blanket was soon drenched, but the chill kept her awake, kept her from falling back into the false happiness of the dream.

Every stone and twig bruised her feet. Her soft slippers were not made for outside walking, and would be in shreds before she reached the village. At least it was not still raining.

The carriage way turned onto the village road. She kept to the side, ready to hide in the ditch if anyone came. Alone, in her shift, and still dazed from the drug? Being returned to the Braxtons would be the best she could expect from a casual passer-by, and the worst… She shuddered. She had travelled with the army, worked as her father’s assistant, been Gervase Melville’s wife. She knew the worst that could happen to a woman at the mercy of the merciless.

A soft whicker caught her attention. Falcon’s Storm. He was a lighter shape above the hedgerow, stretching his neck to reach his mistress.

“Storm, my sweet, my champion.” She stopped to fuss over him for a minute that stretched into a timeless pause, crooning nonsense about having no treats in her pocket for she lacked a pocket. He lipped at her shoulder and her hair, but showed no offence at being denied the expected lump of carrot or apple.

“I missed you, too,” she assured him. “If only you were old enough, dearest, you would carry me away, would you not?”

He was solidly built for a two-year old, but so was she, for a woman. She walked away with a deep sigh. He was the one thing in the world that was solidly, legally, beyond a doubt hers; her only legacy from the swine she had married, born of her mare, Hawk of May, and Gervase’s charger.

But if she took him, how would she feed him? And if they were hunting for a woman and a colt… No, she could not take him with her, and opening the gate to set him loose was also out of consideration. He would follow her, for sure.

She continued on her way, praying that the Braxtons would leave him to the care of old Jake, the groom, or sell him to someone who appreciated him for the future champion he was.

Storm followed her to the corner of his field, and called after her until she was out of sight. She was hobbling by then. Even though the cold numbed them, her feet shot pain at her from a thousand bruises and cuts.

Then the rain began again. She pulled an edge of the blanket over her head, which kept off the worst of it, but it still sluiced down her cheeks and brow, gathered on her eyebrows, dripped over her eyes, and streamed down either side of her nose.

Blurb

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

Meet Jude Knight

Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.

She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19^th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Subscribe to newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I