Author unveils his eighth creation

Author unveils his eighth creation

20 April 2016

CARRYDUFF writer Colin McAlpin has penned another historical-romance hit.

On this occasion, the Glens of Antrim and their turbulent history are the stars of Santa Fe Sisters — a sweeping epic set in the late 1800s.

At the centre of the story are the suddenly impoverished Glenscullion sisters Georgina and Violet Sophia Devonshire, who are forced to seek a new beginning in New Mexico. 

Santa Fe Sisters is the first of several novels by the award-winning Northern Ireland journalist and broadcaster to be published locally, having mostly been initially released across the Atlantic.

“I have had seven novels, three crime and four historical, published in the USA but recently I changed my agent after finding it difficult dealing long-distance and was fortunate to find the excellent Belfast-based David J. Publishing,” said Colin.

“I have many great friends in the Glens of Antrim, particularly long-time fellow journalist and author, Denis O’Hara, and I always wanted to set a story in the area. I also know New Mexico and the lovely city of Santa Fe so it became the perfect combination.”

Santa Fe Sisters is a carefully researched story featuring Colin’s customary strong female characters and takes in the Glens’ mining, railway and shipping past.

“I love strong women and somehow all my books feature them as the central characters,” he said.

“Glenscullion is, of course, a composite of all the beautiful villages strung along the Coast Road and I enjoyed researching the history of the mining and the railways that once thrived throughout the region.”

Since the trains connected the Glens with the rest of Ulster Colin has set parts of the story in Ballymena, Coleraine, Portrush, Londonderry and on Rathlin.

Colin, who co-hosts with daughter, Heidi, publisher of the award-winning Belfast in Your Pocket guidebook, a weekly magazine-music programme on Belfast 89fm, is a former Sports Editor, Features Editor, Arts-Entertainment Editor and columnist on several of the Belfast daily and Sunday newspapers. He now combines his current job as a travel writer with plenty of personal research in the USA, spending considerable time in New Mexico.

“It’s obviously essential to get the historical and geographical background as accurate as possible, so if you’re writing about New Mexico it helps to know what it actually looks like,” Colin said.

“It also helps a writer to have a great researcher to add more information and I am fortunate to have an old friend, Angela Lubbock, on hand to keep me right . She can spot the smallest inaccuracy and sort it out.”

Colin is also a great supporter of Amtrak, the United States national railroad system, and has travelled all of the existing routes, enabling him to write with authority about the arduous journey Georgina and Violet Sophia undertake from Baltimore to Santa Fe.

“It was an interesting time in American history, just after the bloody Civil War when the country was expanding and growing.” he explained. “We know that the Irish, particularly the Ulster-Scots, contributed greatly to the growth but in a way I wanted to pay my tribute to the contribution made by the women. Georgina and Violet Sophia are, I hope, excellent champions for all those women.”

And he has already penned a sequel to Santa Fe Sisters, adding: “There is a major event in Santa Fe Sisters involving Georgina and her best friend, Julia O’Malley, that needed further examination so it’s covered ... and all set for publication.”

Colin is an authority on the American Civil War and several of his novels – all of them to be re-launched in Northern Ireland – are set during the conflict.

He has a large private collection of Civil War memorabilia – books, letters, weapons, documents – and recently he travelled to Richmond, Virginia, the capitol of the old Confederate States, to donate some 30 letters to the Museum of the Confederacy, written by a Confederate Major. And while in Virginia he spent time in Lynchburg researching for his story of the Battle of Lynchburg: The Edge of Evening.

One of his top-selling crime stories – Holy Murder, in the Rachel Andrews Mysteries series – was set largely in the Carryduff area as well as Belfast, New York and the Greek island of Karpathos.

Santa Fe Sisters is now available online.