Sunday, 10 March 2024

It's an Amazon #1 BEST SELLER

Yes! The Boltons of The Little Boltons is now an Amazon #1 Best Seller in 'London Travel'. For those who don't know about this book here's the cover blurb: 

  This is the story of the few months the author and his wife spent working together as servants for a wealthy old couple in their large home of faded glory in The Little Boltons, one of the most desirable addresses in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. 
  It begins by documenting their leap from the comfort and security of their New Zealand home into the bizarre world of domestic service in London. They secured a live-in position, he as the cook and she as the lady's maid, and the engaging narrative describes their duties and how they did their best to provide their eccentric employers with the quality of old-fashioned service and dining to which they were accustomed.   In the process they met an odd assortment of people, somehow connected to the running of the house, whose lives were governed by the unwritten rules of the English class system.
  It was, as the author says, a sad and somewhat surreal and shabby end of an era, unmarked by history; a metaphor for the demise of what was once the capital of the world's most powerful empire. 
  And yet it's such a charming little story





 

Saturday, 5 August 2023

AVAILABLE NOW. The international rise and fall of an Auckland ad man

It's taken more than a year but my new novel is finished. It's called IT'S WHAT EDDIE DID. Available now from Amazon and Kindle.  

Here's the cover image and synopsis. 

From an Auckland slum to the heights of a New York boardroom and, eventually, an obscure and unhappy old age, It’s What Eddie Did records the rise and fall of Eddie Purvis, a rich and successful New Zealand advertising man, and his relationship with one of the world’s great international airlines and its New York advertising agency. However, obsessed with his own mid-life success, Eddie later discovers the importance of family, and that wealth can’t protect him and them from life’s troubles and disappointments. 

Tuesday, 5 April 2022

The first review of 'The Fable of Flitcroft Point is in. It's five-star. Very perceptive. And it's from Germany.

 





It says, in English (according to Herr Google): 

"The acting persons [the characters] are very lively and you feel with them. This is not just a made-up story but could have happened several times - for the Maori in New Zealand and everywhere in the world."  

Wednesday, 23 February 2022

Found: A nice review of 'The Boys and Men of Auckland's Mickey Rooney Gang' in the Whanganui Chronicle.

 

Book review: The Boys and Men of Auckland's Mickey Rooney Gang

Whanganui Midweek

The Boys and Men of Auckland's Mickey Rooney Gang
By Robert Philip Bolton
Reviewed by Albert Sword

There is so much 'knowingness' in this exceptional novel, a knowingness bred of the author's deep wisdom, a common-sense knowingness of the surety of relationships and entanglements.

To say the characters are finely drawn is an understatement, for, from page one, each character is etched into the reader's consciousness; they become persons we knew growing up, or persons we know now, with hindsight helping form the connections.

Crudely put, we fall in love with Bolton's characters, who take us on a well-constructed romp through the 60s and 70s of the 20th century.

My baby-boomer birth date of 1950 meant a catch-up of a few years to join these characters, but everything mentioned in this superbly researched book is strong in my memories of the time, vivid and meaningful.

Robert Bolton doesn't put a foot wrong in his narrative, I am there with him, all the way, and anyone growing up in working-class/middle class 60s/70s New Zealand will also be with the author. The ease of the everyday vernacular, and laid-back syntax instantly draws the reader into the narrative, also into trusting the writer.

There are no off putting gaps in the narrative, or in the way. Bolton stitches together the nine separate main characters, their families, friends and significant relationships. To bring together all these varied stories into one cogent and powerful novel is nothing short of magical.

Robert Philip Bolton is a consummate, and prolific, storyteller. In all his books, he creates interesting characters, hones them to perfection, then lets them tell their stories, just like a brilliant symphonic conductor can set parameters for the orchestra, then get out of the way of the musicians who are then left free to create their own realities. Wonderful stuff!

I enjoyed every word of The Boys and Men of Auckland's Mickey Rooney Gang.
Robert Philip Bolton is an independent New Zealand writer.

Like many dedicated and professional writers, he found it impossible to break into the small New Zealand publishing establishment.

"Thus," he says, "I happily publish my own books on Amazon and Kindle and sell them to loyal and satisfied readers around the world."

Friday, 18 February 2022

My new novel 'The Fable of Flitcroft Point' is now AVAILABLE

 

Yes. The Fable of Flitcroft Point will be available soon is available now in New Zealand paperback and internationally from Amazon and Kindle. 
Set in the distamt future, it's like nothing  else I've ever written. 

HERE IS THE COVER BLURB: 

 Early in the twenty-first century a series of viruses killed eighty percent of the world’s population. Famine loomed.

In New Zealand there was plenty of food but too few people to process it. The surviving city folk therefore fled to the countryside where they provided labour to the remaining farmers in return for a share of the food they helped produce. As a result the country’s towns and cities were abandoned.

Into this vacuum came the invading Vandiers, so numerous and wealthy they dominated the small Kiwiland population whose traditions, culture, religion and language they despised.

The Fable of Flitcroft Point is set in a typical Kiwiland village where, in 2177, the land-grabbing Vandier government has taken village land for its own purposes. The Kiwilanders, angry and frustrated, want their land back. But can their feeble protest succeed against the overwhelming power of central government? 

 

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

A new novel

 Almost a year after the publication of 'Jacko' my new novel is finished. (Lockdown helped.) It is now in the final stages of preparation for publication. It's called 'The Fable of Flitcroft Point'.  There's no cover yet but the cover blurb is written and ready to go. 

The Fable of Flitcroft Point  

Early in the twenty-first century a series of viruses killed eighty percent of the world’s population. Famine loomed.

In New Zealand there was plenty of food but too few people to process it. The surviving city folk therefore fled to the countryside where they provided labour to the remaining farmers in return for a share of the food they produced. As a result the country’s towns and cities were abandoned.

Into this vacuum, in 2076, came the Vandiers, so numerous and wealthy they dominated the small Kiwiland population whose traditions, culture, religion and language they despised.

The Fable of Flitcroft Point is set in a typical Kiwiland village where the Vandier government has taken village land for its own purposes. The Kiwilanders decide they want their land back. But can their feeble protest succeed against the overwhelming power of central government?


Sunday, 13 December 2020