Jun 21, 20219 min read

Blog Tour with "The Pact" by Tom Durwood

Welcome to Tom Durwood on his blog tour for "The Pact"! The Historical Fiction Press is happy to host a spot for his fabulous book, featuring a spotlight on him and a book excerpt.

AUTHOR BIO

Tom Durwood is a teacher, writer and editor with an interest in history. Tom most recently taught English Composition and Empire and Literature at Valley Forge Military College, where he won the Teacher of the Year Award five times. Tom has taught Public Speaking and Basic Communications as guest lecturer for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group at the Dam’s Neck Annex of the Naval War College.

Tom’s ebook Empire and Literature matches global works of film and fiction to specific quadrants of empire, finding surprising parallels. Literature, film, art and architecture are viewed against the rise and fall of empire. In a foreword to Empire and Literature, postcolonial scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty of the University of Chicago calls it “imaginative and innovative.” Prof. Chakrabarty writes that “Durwood has given us a thought-provoking introduction to the humanities.” His subsequent book “Kid Lit: An Introduction to Literary Criticism” has been well-reviewed. “My favorite nonfiction book of the year,” writes The Literary Apothecary (Goodreads).

Early reader response to Tom’s historical fiction adventures has been promising. “A true pleasure … the richness of the layers of Tom’s novel is compelling,” writes Fatima Sharrafedine in her foreword to “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.” The Midwest Book Review calls that same adventure “uniformly gripping and educational … pairing action and adventure with social issues.” Adds Prairie Review, “A deeply intriguing, ambitious historical fiction series.”

Tom briefly ran his own children’s book imprint, Calico Books (Contemporary Books, Chicago). Tom’s newspaper column “Shelter” appeared in the North County Times for seven years. Tom earned a Masters in English Literature in San Diego, where he also served as Executive Director of San Diego Habitat for Humanity.

Book Title: The Pact

Series: (The Illustrated Colonials, Book One)

Author: Tom Durwood

Publication Date: 8th April 2021

Publisher: Empire Studies Press

Page Length: 218 Pages

Genres: Young Adult / Historical Fiction / Adventure

BOOK BLURB

Six international teens join the American Revolution.

Coming of age and making history.

They went into 1776 looking for a fight. Little did they know how much it would cost them…

Six rich kids from around the globe join the Bostonian cause, finding love and treachery along the path to liberty.

A new perspective on one of history’s most fascinating moments.

Amply illustrated edition of a young-adult historical fiction novel.

BOOK EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

The Power of An Idea

Common Sense became the most

widely read work in the western world,

after only the Bible.

-- Harlow Giles Unger

The face was very young, and very determined.

Freckles were sprinkled across the girl’s nose and upper cheeks. Just sixteen, Jiayi Mei Ying took after her mother – reserved, willful, an aspect of red cheeks and swept-back black hair above a high collar.

The girl’s eyes were clear, and smart, and took in all before her. A glimmer of fire flared in them when a passing vendor made her almost topple the laden tray she was carrying. Wariness around the edges of the eyes hinted that this was a girl who had seen more of life’s darker side than most. The delicacy of her features was deceptive.

Floating far above, gulls called out, wondering what was in the boxes.

She turned the corner, balancing the tray in her two hands carefully.

The print shop of the Yunhe, in downtown Zhangzhou, overlooks that section of the canal where the channel widens to a lake ringed with wharfs to receive the traffic coming from the Xiamen ports, eastward, and the China Sea beyond, and the great Pacific and Indian oceans beyond that, to the interior.

The modest, red-shingled shop entrance sits on the slope among bustling cobblestone streets of tailors and vegetable stands, small merchants and big-wheeled peddler carts. Over the doorway a wooden sign swings in the breezes that rise from the open spaces above the broad canal, and the volumes of moving waters.

The bamboo door to the crowded, noisy print shop swung open.

Smiles appeared on the beleaguered faces of the printers when they saw Jiayi Mei Ying, youngest daughter of the Peiken family, the extended family whose members manage the all the waters, lands, and operations of the vast Yunhe Canal territories.

Mei Ying carried a black tray loaded with three heavy boxes.

She carefully removed the boxes from the black tray and placed them on the counter, careful to avoid woodblocks and racks of copper type.

The dayinji, or in this case the zhiding dayinji, of the Canal Territories, worked ceaselessly. Their presses chattered all day and all night. Consistent was the flow of printed information to disperse to the people and ships along China’s greatest canal, a thousand-mile kingdom-within-a-kingdom.

Mei Ying called out her greeting.

Behind came her burly second cousin, Teng Sho, carrying a second black tray, also piled high with jīng bājiàn pastries.

Sweet fragrances rose from the distinctive red wrappings hiding still-warm cherry rose-bud puffs and caramelized rice cakes. Eight varieties in all. The sounds of whirring cylinders and clacking presses bounced off the walls and ceilings.

“Another pamphlet, eh?” commented Li Jie, the second shift supervisor with a smile.

“The best one yet,” replied the girl.

The shop boys began to leave their posts and form a ring behind the chief, wiping hands on aprons. These particular pastries were only available from the bakers at Daoxiangcun, and few were the families who could enter that shop.

As the pastries began to disperse among the print boys, Mei Ying removed the pouch from over her shoulder. From the pouch, she removed a document.

She placed it carefully on the counter.

“We have two schedules to put out, for the line chiefs,” said Li Jei, “then a dispatch for your Father. Then we can get to it.”

He nodded to Mei Ying. “Thank you for the pastries.”

She bowed extra low and extra long, for she knew she was asking for extra work, and paper, and ink, without any reward beyond the pastries.

“Thank you, yin biao ji.,” said the daughter of the Yunhe.

“It is well that we share the word.” She used the term minzhong, which can mean ‘beloved people,’ but can also mean ‘countryside of China’ or ‘worthy villages of China.’

Li Jie hefted the document, as though weighing the words and concepts it contained.

The document would have to go through the shop proofreaders to become a proper pamphlet, for Mei Ying, while enthusiastic about certain concepts, was no scholar. It took time and care to find which characters in the vast Chinese lexicon might best be used to correctly capture the meaning of phrases like “natural liberty” and “common sense” and “taxation without representation.”

Mei Ying took her leave.

The door slapped the frame behind her, leaving the print-shop steward to look through the pamphlet she had left behind. It had a green cover, as unassuming as any accountant’s chart, but the ideas within it would soon shiver the nations, known and unknown, present and future.

* * *

“The consent of the governed.”

The young woman, a teacher, had risen to her feet without being noticed by the Magistrate or his aides. She gripped a much-read green pamphlet in one hand.

When she spoke, the words snapped in the air, clear and firm.

“Madame?” asked the Magistrate.

These meetings with the peasant class usually went smoothly, with the fumu guan reciting newly revised laws, a charter, and schedules of ‘donated’ labor.

“You can only pass such a law as this with the consent of the governed,” said the teacher.

The Magistrate, a tall, aloof man with an officious manner, looked blankly at the speaker. She was no more than a girl.

He conferred with an associate.

“You refer to the crazy waiguo ren ideas,” he ventured.

“The Prefect makes good use of waiguo ren cavalry when he sees fit,” came the teacher’s retort.

“This isn’t Hebei, you know,” the assistant reminded her. “This isn’t Shanxi—or Boston -- ”

She waved the green pamphlet in her hand.

“The Qianlong Emperor acts in the interests of the people,” the teacher stated.

“You have said so yourself. Many times.”

“Yes. It is widely known,” the Magistrate replied.

“Well, this is not in my interest.

“The burden of this labor on my family is too great. My family will starve if my two brothers are conscripted for this long a time. As with the fathers of my students.

“We do not consent to build the Emperor’s road to Zhangzhou!”

“Young lady, the Governor canno-- ”

“Mark me,” she warned, interrupting.

She shook her head.

“We have not consented.”

She pursed her lips. She put her hands on her hips.

“You cannot govern us.”

* * *

“Get back in line or sink!” called Jiayi Mei Ying.

The voice through the megaphone was high in pitch, rich with menace. The words were slow and distinguishable, for all the ships in the queue to hear.

“Back in line, Long Shou -- ”

On this bright morning, a mid-sized sea hawk from the Anhau Province kept trying to butt in line at the very entrance to the Canal.

A trio of skitter boats chased it, their leaders narrating on the megaphone. The brightly colored flags on the small quick vessels gave an unmistakable message.

The sea hawk Long Shou defied all these commands. She darted among the grain barges and military transports.

Twenty-two boats patiently obeyed the queue, and watched the interloper, waving him off.

The tillerman of a four-oared tax collecting vessel stood and shook his fists. The crewmen of the grain barges looked on with amusement: no one jumps in line on the Grand Canal. The Yunhe see to that.

Members of a brace of cormorants who nested at the Canal, patrolling the waters with their shaggy crests, looking for food, squawked at the commotion and looked on, curious.

“Last warning …” called the voice through the bullhorn.

A curt burst of a cannon exploded from the lead skitter’s deck and the Long Shou’s mast blew into bits.

Birds scattered.

A second cannon fired and fishing nets splayed over the Long Shou’s deck, catching man and canvas and tiller in its chaotic sprawl. Panicked shouts and cries erupted from the deck.

Three quick detonations from the skitters and chained grappling hooks shot out and hooked onto the Long Shou’s gunwales.

The skitters abruptly came about and, sails straining, began to ferry the disabled sea hawk out of line, to the docks.

Once the ship was grounded, the pilot charged down the wharf, arms flailing wildly, screaming threats and insults --

Striding towards him at the same speed was Jiayi Mei Ying, the teenaged girl who had ordered their capture. Three youths her own age trailed close behind.

“You do NOT impede the Anhui War Lord,” shrieked the pilot, a well-dressed young man in his early twenties. His manner was that of one used to getting his own way.

“I am LAO BAN!” he screamed. “My father is the Commander of the Cloud Cavalry! Oh YES!”

“Feng gou!” came the low warning from one of the trio with the girl.

“You will REPAIR my boat!” shrieked Lao Ban.

At ten paces, Jiayi Mei Ying flung what looked like a block of wood at Lao Ban.

The block of wood separated into two; the twin blocks were connected by a rope.

“You will LICK the VARNISH as I watch your PATHETIC – urk!”

The rope struck the young noble in the neck and wrapped around his throat, so that the two stout blocks of wood slammed him in the head.

He crumpled and fell to the dock.

“I am Jiayi Mei Ying,” she told the crew of the now-unconscious Lao Ban.

“I am unranked in your system. But my family runs this Canal, on behalf of the Emperor. On behalf of the people.

“You have broken the rules of these waters. Now you will pay the price.”

Mei Ying bade them pick up their unconscious pilot and join her family for lunch, before they began their sentencing, and then the repairs.

* * *

“I’m not sure I CARE,” announced Mei Ying, in a tone of disrespect that could not be mistaken, “WHAT the third of the three great hydraulic engineering projects of the Qin Dynasty might be.”

“That’s it,” replied her Grandfather, Ting Wen.

“You’re out.”

The old man spoke assertively, clearly, wanting his voice to be heard all across the classroom.

It had been a long morning. Miss Lo had guided her students in drawing detailed pattern maps of the effects of flash flooding in sedimentary gullies and gorges. It is not a topic that can be covered quickly, or summarized, or short-cut in any way. Engrossed in the details of the alluvial fans of the Koszeg mountains, Miss Lo had skipped the students’ 10:00 tea break.

Hence Mei Ying’s outburst.

Now, she and her classmates (many of them her cousins) looked around at one another.

Even the teacher, Miss Lo, seemed taken aback.

Ting Wen was a village elder, and he often sat along the side of the classroom, beneath the windows, rarely speaking until the instructor’s lesson ended and tutoring began.

“What?” demanded Mei Ying.

“Get out.”

The old man indicated the door, using a nod of the head, as you would to an old friend, who knew what you meant anyway.

Mei Ying rose form her desk angrily, making sure to generate clatter and chair-scraping sounds as she did.

“All right,” the student said loudly. “I WILL get out, then -- ”

“You’re on your own now,” replied her Grandfather. “Good luck.”

Jiayi Mei Ying tore open the door in an effort to draw attention away from the tears beginning to well up in her eyes, and her shaking hands.

She slammed the door shut behind her.

So began the journeys of China’s legendary Navigator, greatest of the modern era.