Cast list for Book of Kings…

As a finale to celebrate the end of The Gisborne Saga, I thought I’d show the many faces that have helped me. There are many more of course, if spread over the three books of the trilogy, a wonderful cast list throughout and mostly weighted in favour of wonderful actors from the UK.

The list below is just those whose craft has fleshed the characters of Kings for me. I really owe them an enormous amount…

Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne

Sophie Myles as Lady Ysabel of Gisborne

Lotte Verbeek as Ariella

Peter Dinklage as Tobias/Tommaso Celho

Unknown child as William, Master Gisborne

Unknown man as Mehmet

Joseph Fiennes as Guillaume

Paul Bettany as Peter

Kevin Mc Kidd as Adam

Jason Flemyng as Simon de Courcey

Charles Dance as Richard Lionheart

David Tennant as Davey

Phyllida Law as Lady Cecilia

Sophie Turner as Gwen

Emma Thompson as Bridget

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‘Dair’ to be different…

I met my current guest a number of years ago – not many months after we had both decided to move into independent writing and publishing. We connected because at that time, there weren’t a lot of Australians treading the independent path and the friendship has seen much laughter and happiness as we share in each other’s successes.

We have both been lucky enough to win similar medals (except she added a gold one to her collection) with Readers’ Favorites (USA) and also with the RONE Awards (USA). And whilst I have diverged and gone along the historical fiction path, she has established a very strong brand in her genre, bringing quality writing, stellar research and elegant covers to all that she touches.

She has a magnificent Pinterest account which secured the interest of New York’s fastest growing fine arts blog, Hyperallergic. And most recently, her partnership with a group of American historical romance writers has secured her the coveted New York Times Bestseller title.

I am of course talking about the high-ranking historical romance novelist, Lucinda Brant.

Along with high fliers Ann Swinfen and SJA Turney, she is one of those I invited to be a partner in the Main Character Blog Tour, begun by Debra Brown, the instigator of the massively popular Facebook and blog site – English Historical Fiction Authors.  Ann, Simon, Lucinda and I are in the process of having brand new novels published and to be able to introduce our main characters to you either here, or on our own blogs, is very special!

Welcome Lucinda, and tell us…

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Alisdair “Dair” Fitzstuart, Major Lord Fitzstuart, recently of the 17^th Lancers, and hero of the Battle of Long Island campaign (August 27, 1776) of the American Revolutionary War. He received the nickname Dair Devil from his days at Harrow, where he was known to accept any dare put to him, and that carried over into his adult life. With a reputation to uphold as the Dair Devil, he does not refuse a wager. Major Lord Fitzstuart is fictional.

 

2) When and where is the story set?

London and Hampshire, 1777.

The American Revolutionary War continues to rage on the other side of the Atlantic with the British determined to win the war, and rebel American colonists just as determined to cut ties with Britain and forge a new nation. Yet, life in England is peaceful. For the aristocracy life is opulence personified, with houses the size of palaces, and days spent dressed in fashionable silks and in leisurely pursuits. Yet, no level of society is immune to the war. Members of the nobility hold key positions in the army and navy. And if not directly fighting, like Dair Fitzstuart, are in Parliament debating the war, as well as holding positions in government departments, secret committees and operations to try and bring about a resolution to hostilities before France publicly declares its support for the rebel colonists

The American Revolutionary War is the first war where intelligence gathering (spying) comes into its own, with spy rings on both sides. Spies and spying play a major role in helping both sides gather information on troop movements, supply chains, sympathizers and traitors. Both Dair and Miss Aurora ‘Rory” Talbot are intimately involved in the spying game—more I can’t say for fear of spoiling the story!

 

3) What should we know about him/her?

Dair Fitzstuart is a ruggedly handsome ex-officer who’s a bit of a rogue and a rascal. He’s one of the boys, who’s not afraid to use his fists in an affray. He’s considered vainglorious and arrogant, and is said to keep a mistress and children, with no intention of giving them up upon marriage. And yet, for a daughter of the Georgian aristocracy, he ticks all the right boxes as suitable husband material: He’s heir to an earldom, a direct descendant of Charles the Second, and cousin of the all-powerful Duke of Roxton.

Yet appearances can deceive. People are never one dimensional, and none more so than Dair Fitzstuart, who has a well crafted public façade. What Society—even his family—thinks it knows about him is only what the man himself permits to be revealed.

4) What is the main conflict? What confuses his/her life?

Dair Fitzstuart is prepared to gamble with his life, but never with his heart. That is, until a chance encounter at George Romney’s painting studio where he literally runs into Rory Talbot, one very astute young woman. The attraction is immediate and mutual, and the consequences profound.

Rory Talbot is unlike any other female he has met; for one thing, she cultivates pineapples—not an easy thing to do in the 18^th Century. Pineapples were considered such a rare and exotic fruit that if you had the money you could hire one for your next party; the fruit was the celebrity and the talking point.

After Dair’s chance encounter with Rory, his public persona beings to fall apart. He starts to question his own motivation for hiding behind a façade of blustering arrogance. It helps that Rory has seen through his guise from the start.

 

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

From the moment Dair realizes he wants no other woman but Rory for his wife he sets about convincing her they are destined to be together. He is determined to show her he is worthy of her, and that she, for all her misgivings, is his ideal life partner. It’s not an easy quest. In the process, he learns a few home truths about himself that he would never have dreamed of addressing if not for Rory, and he is determined to be a better man.

 

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

DAIR DEVIL: A Georgian Historical Romance, Roxton Family Saga Book 4

You can read more about it here: http://lucindabrant.com/dair-devil.php

Go behind-the-scenes of DAIR DEVIL and explore the places, objects, and history in the book on Pinterest:

 

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

The book has just been published and is available from all eRetailers:

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JX9ILWS

Amazon UK: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JX9ILWS

iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and other eRetailers: http://lucindabrant.com/dair-devil.php

 

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Pawns, knights and kings…

I’m in a bit of a dilemma about the cover of the next book. The title as everyone knows, is Gisborne: Book of Kings.

This doesn’t necessarily refer to monarchs though. The trilogy’s titles have tended to be built around the awful manipulation of people’s hearts and souls in the Middle Ages and so we began with Pawns, moved across the board with Knights and will have the denoument with Kings.

Thus the cover could indicate a king, an emperor or even a duke. It could be Richard Lionheart, Phillip of France, Leopold of Austria – even Emperor Henry Hohenstauffen. Or none of them…

The over-riding factor is that in order to bind the three novels of the trilogy together the subjects of the covers must all be taken from paintings by Rogier van der Weyden.

Yes, I am aware that this august painter lived in the fifteenth century, but faces in twelfth century paintings are invariably maudlin, gothic and elongated. My brief to my cover designer has been that I want ‘interesting’ faces.

This is what we have found…

The problem is: which one? Any ideas?

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Top 100…still!

Over the last eight months, my surprise everyday has been to find that both the historical fiction/historical romances and the historical fantasies from my pen have achieved Amazon Bestsellers Rank: (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) in the Amazon.co.uk store.

This has been consistent. A daily ranking popping up and down the scale between 1 and 100.

With the hist.ficts, The Gisborne Saga, it is over two categories –

> Biographical Fiction and Fiction  and > Historical Romance > Medieval.

For someone who is an independently published author to crack the Top 100 amongst luminous titles like Anya Seton’s Katherine or Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, E.M Forster’s A Passage to India or Sharon Penman’s Lionheart to name just four, it’s a breathtaking and illustrious moment in time.

And then there are the historical fantasies.  The same thing applies. A daily ranking jumping up and down the scale between 1 and 100. Repeatedly. Over 8 solid months! They sit neatly in:

> Fantasy > Myths & Legends > Celtic, English & Welsh

and in the case of The Shifu Cloth – > Fantasy > Myths & Legends > Asian.

On Amazon.com, it’s a slightly different story. I would have thought that being a market saturated with fantasy of all kinds, that The Chronicles or Eirie would be struggling. But no! In Mythology & Folk Tales > Folklore, they are doing the same ‘popping’ thing. Except for The Shifu Cloth which once again ducks into:

Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Myths & Legends > Asian

However, medieval historical romance/biographical fiction are hard nuts to crack in the USA. Time will tell.

But all of the above are just the spurs a writer needs. Whilst writing is a joy, even a compunction – all those clichés that every author-interview spills forth – to have a recognised rank means that somehow, one is doing the right thing by the reader.

But more than that, I have to say an enormous Top Ranked THANKYOU to the readers!!!!

However, time passes and I have the final book of The Gisborne Saga to finish. Enough revelling in rankings…

Onward and upward…

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Cooking to feed the muse…

A photographic essay to show what one simply MUST have by one’s side when one has an April deadline. According to my publisher, I must finish Gisborne: Book of Kings by then so it can proceed to the editor… so, sweet stuff needed.

The chocolate melting.

The butter and eggs being beaten.

Homegrown boysenberries picked moments before.

The cheesecake mixture ready for beating.

The chocolate base mixed.

The layers now being marbled.

The berries added.

The baking.

The cup of tea and cheesecake slice after it all!

In the meantime, why don’t you enjoy the first two books in the saga.

Pawns: 

Kindle UK: http://amzn.to/LrzO8l

Kindle USA: http://amzn.to/JFLNh8

Knights:

Kindle UK: http://amzn.to/13F2im9

Kindle USA: http://amzn.to/1awRZ9Z

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My Guy…

It’s tough being cast as a baddy. It’s what happened to Guy of Gisborne when Robin Hood rose to his (questionable) prominence.

Seriously, how can someone who robbed and killed people because they happened to be wealthy be considered a hero? By the fact that he gave the cash to the poor?

Okay. Fine. I’ll concede that point…

But Gisborne historically operated within the bounds of the law at the time. Operating within the tithing/taxing system that existed under the laws of the kingdom and doing exactly what the Sheriff of Nottingham expected him to do – even though we consider it unjust and cruel.

Is it any wonder then that I wanted to take Gisborne as far from that archetype as possible?

I’m well into the writing of Gisborne: Book of Kings, the finale of The Gisborne Saga, and as Ysabel and Guy spent today in a quite civilised fashion with each other, unaware of the shattering event heading their way, it occurred to me how different my Guy is from the legend. Personally, being a BBC Guy fan, I’m perfectly happy with that.

What do you think?

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Freshly painted …the art of historical fiction.

Recently I noticed a review about one of my hist.romances which claimed some degree of anachronism – did people really bathe that much in the twelfth century? In fact my reading has shown there is a complete disparity of opinion over this issue, which meant I must make a choice. I did. I was writing fiction and I chose the scholarly fact that best backed what I wished to say.

I was also taken to task for using the word ‘puke’ because its roots are in the seventeenth century, which I knew. But I needed to imply a middle-aged woman vomiting up her insides on a ship journey. I could have used the word ‘vomit’ but even that dates from the fifteenth century. Exactly what words did they use for such a bodily function in the twelfth century? To substitute a word in Latin or Norman French or Occitan wouldn’t work at all. Nor would it be sensible in my opinion. So ‘puke’ it was. It’s powerful, short and sharp – exactly what this poor woman was experiencing. My feeling about language is that there must be a certain amount of leeway, especially if the story is enjoyable and is loyal to its timeframe. Then again, I suppose I could re-write the whole novel in Latin or Norman French…

Such things make me wonder why we can’t be more flexible both in reading and writing historical novels. Which made recent commentary by R.Clifton Spargo about the writing of the genre just the exact thing I wanted to hear:

• Through untold hours of research, you must investigate a past you didn’t live. And even though you don’t have ready imaginative access to the events, you must make them believable. A tremendous point upon which the adaptable new historical fiction writer will jump. Personally I think it makes for real freshness and excitement. Colin Falconer approaches his writing with exactly that idea and I wrote another post about his thoughts some time ago. In my own case, there are many aspects of the twelfth century which are argued about amongst scholars, or worse, where there is no evidence at all. The best one can do is endeavour to be loyal to one’s timeframe and then take a guess. One can’t be sure its an informed guess because the facts to back it up may not have been brought to light yet. So it is and will remain a ‘guesstimate’.

• Take your characters off the grid? Personally I love this idea. It is exactly what I think gives freshness to current independently published hist.fict . It has the capacity to scoop the reader up into a narrative beyond the more heavily laid down norm of the past. That must surely be a good thing. I think it stretches the art-form.
• Make your characters resemble people, not historical personages. Characters based on famous lives must behave in ways consistent with experiences their real-life models actually endured in history. And yet, you need to know those lives so well as to begin to forget them, much in the manner each of us forgets so much of our daily lives as we race through them. I love it when historical personages have pimples or boils, become constipated or shiver with cold, get drunk or admit to fear. I hate it when they are placed in the ivory tower of their own historical magnificence. I want to forget that Richard Lionheart was a perfect strategist. I love finding out from an author that as a youth, he might have dared a young girl to climb a fig tree hanging over a wall, knowing she could fall to her death. I want to believe that these people were as normal for their time as we might be for ours. Why not? Isn’t it what we want from our heroes of today – to know that the famous have a life that we can relate to. It’s the kind of thing that sells today’s weekly magazines after all. That Angelina Jolie has a history of breast cancer in her family, or that Kate Middleton has bad hair days or that Prince Charles hates seeing his tulips fold in the wind like mine.

• Make it new—‘there is no urgency to’ feel the urgency of repeating familiar detail. Here is a place only a novelist could go, where historians couldn’t. And so the reader can be given a reprieve from the info-dump that so many authors in both mainstream and independent writing still feel is necessary to the narrative. As a reader, I will always go to a scholarly non-fiction text if I want to find out more about the timeframe. Please, please, please I tell myself as I write – don’t be overt. Subtlety is the thing, Prue. Besides, is Spargo not saying that the novelist is writing fiction after all? Colin Falconer quoted Bernard Cornwell today. “If you are wanting to write historical fiction I always say, you are not an historian. If you want to tell the world about the Henrician reformation, then write a history book – but if you want an exciting story, then become a storyteller. Telling the story is the key.” 
• Thank you, Bernard and thank you, Colin.

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Why this legend?

So often people ask why I’ve written a saga about Guy of Gisborne and not Robin Hood, Arthur, Abelard, Tristan or any of the many others from legend and history. So perhaps I need to place it more fully in black and white.

It all began, like many things, as a bit of fun.

At the time I was historical fantasy writer completing a four book chronicle set in an Earth-like world called Eirie. I had been watching the BBC TV series, Robin Hood.

and become a fan of the totally anachronistic humour. (Where else does one find a slick Sheriff with the tagline ‘well la-di-da-di-da!’)

By the second series I had become rather interested in Guy of Gisborne, played so well by Richard Armitage. I followed the third series and was immensely sad at Gisborne’s ending. He was the perfect anti-hero and of course all his fans were devastated at his demise.

So merely for fun I started writing what they call fan-fiction, which was to be an alternative history of the legend called Guy of Gisborne. Initially, chapters went to Wattpad as I didn’t really envisage it being a fully-fledged novel. It began in my mind with the Sheriff, with Marian, Prince John and Robin. When a readership started to follow it, something that surprised me greatly, I took it to my blog and put up weekly chapters.

And then one day I wondered what Gisborne’s outcomes would have been if Fate had taken charge early in his life. What would have happened if he’d never met the Sheriff, Marian or Robin?

Bells started to tinkle, ring and then clang, as they often do when I think I might be onto something.

I began to research more deeply, commensurate with the writing of a novel rather than a fan-fiction. I stopped posting chapters of what was then The Sheriff’s Collector on the blog. The ‘fun’ chapters were morphing into something more serious and the new title became ‘Gisborne: Book of Pawns.’ It was only envisaged to be one book, but in writing a tiny short for Bopress Miniatures for an edition called simply ‘Gisborne’, I realised this saga could go further.

Thus, Book of Knights was born and when Book of Knights was midway through, the finale, Book of Kings, sowed seeds in my mind.

Some might find it odd to write a series about Gisborne that doesn’t adhere to the legend. That might be so but there is a whole audience out there, a huge global army of Richard Armitage fans who say categorically that Gisborne is SND. (So Not Dead).

So I can’t be that wrong!

And then there were those RA/Gisborne fans in Russia (discovered online), who believed it wasn’t ‘the thing’ to write a book about Gisborne which didn’t involve the Sheriff, Marian etc.

My response to that is why?

It was far more exciting to write what might become a new legend than to re-write an old one where Robin dies and Guy gets the girl. I wanted to write Guy just as the anti-hero from the TV series showed me he could be. I wanted the same timeframe but far different circumstance.

Only the ending of Book of Kings will prove whether I have bought Gisborne’s alternative history to an acceptable (and breathtaking) conclusion. In the meantime I think there is a man of legend out there is who is glad he’s been given a second chance!

(All images of Guy of Gisborne from BBC/Tiger Aspect Productions)

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Castles, Customs and Kings…

Two years ago, I discovered English Historical fiction Authors on Facebook. Subsequently, I began to follow their wonderful blog and being a medieval aficionado (for that, read writer) as well as a Georgian and Regency fan, there were many blogposts which I bookmarked for future reference.

Then last year, I was invited to contribute my own post to the blog. Honoured, I decided to write about my forbear, William Owen Millington, who was transported to Van Diemans’ Land from England in the 1830’s.

It’s now an honour and a supreme pleasure to say that my own post and many others have been published in the most perfect compendium. For those interested in English historical fact through the ages, I recommend this book heartily.

Available now.

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PUBLISHED!

It’s ready, it’s on the shelves!!!!

‘Once Lady Ysabel Ce Courcey had thought that if she had been a trobairitz, she might have written a song about herself – her courage in the face of adversity that would have had the men and women in any noble hall sighing as they listened.

Now, on the eve of the Third Crusade, the denouement of the ballad is beginning…
Ysabel races across the waters of the Middle Sea to seek out Sir Guy of Gisborne because she has vital information that could save a king.
But above all, she longs to tell the wronged knight that she values him and will stand back to back with him in a vengeful battle that could threaten all their lives.’

Amazon.com http://amzn.to/15w24Tt

Amazon.co.uk http://amzn.to/1bnJiA8

Other outlets following in the next few days.

In addition, Book One – Gisborne: Book of Pawns is on special at a celebratory release price until the end of July.

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