I am sorry it has taken me so long to post another blog, but Richard has been keeping me very busy with a chapter that ended up being much longer than I’d initially intended.  It isn’t unusual for a chapter to become two, for I try to keep them about fifteen pages or so in length unless the chapter cannot possibly be divided, like Henry’s penance scene at Becket’s tomb.  But this is the first time a chapter split like an amoeba into three parts. 

       Thank you all for the interesting book recommendations.  I’m glad you reminded us of Pauline Gedge’s fine Egyptian books, Angela.  I’m also looking forward to Michelle Moran’s next book, Cleopatra’s Daughter, for while I know she was raised by Antony’s long-suffering wife, I know nothing about her subsequent history.  And I hope you tell us more about your Janna mysteries, Felicity.  I’d be interested, too, in what boundaries you set in writing books for teenagers.  When my first mystery, The Queen’s Man, was chosen as one of the best books of the year for Young Adults, I was delighted, of course.  Then I thought, “But Justin has sex!  And there are some bloody murders.”   Apparently, though, sex and violence are okay as long as the writer is not too explicit?

        Judith, I was fascinated to learn that after reading Devil’s Brood, you wrote two songs, one for Hal and one for Joanna.  Would you consider sharing them with us?  Linda, I loved your wish that if only Henry VIII had an appreciation of architecture, he may have spared all those beautiful abbeys and cathedrals.  Of course if Richard had won at Bosworth, Henry would never have been King of England in the first place.  For those who claim that one man cannot change history, I’d say “Meet Henry Tudor.”  If Henry had not been born, would England have broken with the Catholic Church?  Or for that matter, what if Anne Boleyn had never appeared at the royal court to catch Henry’s lustful eye?   This is about as close as I can come to Alternate History, Johnny.  It just goes against my natural instincts.   Moreover, if I lost readers when I started to do mysteries because they preferred that I write of real people and actual events, imagine how they’d bail on me if I ventured into Alternate History!

    Gayle, I found your comments about Eleanor quite interesting, but I do think you were rather hard on her.  Sadly, Eleanor and Henry both failed miserably as parents, Eleanor by not preventing her teenage sons from taking part in that first rebellion, Henry for mistakes beyond counting—not giving Hal lands and money of his own, refusing to give Geoffrey and Constance her full inheritance, trying to take Aquitaine from Richard, using Geoffrey and John to bring Richard to heel.   It is amazing that this brilliant man kept making the same mistakes over and over again where his sons were concerned.

      I have to conclude that Henry’s parental flaws were greater than Eleanor’s simply because their children seem to have loved her.   IF Joanna and Matilda (my Tilda) had not loved their mother, they would not have sought her out in her disgrace.  When Joanna spent the summer of 1176 with Eleanor before her departure for Sicily, Henry’s wounds were still raw, and he’d surely have preferred to keep his daughter away from the wife who’d betrayed him.  But it is very much to Henry’s credit that he put Joanna’s needs first.  And when Matilda and her husband were exiled from Germany, it would have been easy enough to avoid Eleanor and it would have been prudent, too for she and Heinrich were utterly dependent upon Henry’s good will; instead she was often with her mother, even had Eleanor with her at her lying-in.

      As for Eleanor’s sons, Richard’s affection for his mother shines clearly down through the centuries; on his deathbed, Hal pleaded with his father to forgive her; Geoffrey named his daughter after Eleanor; and even John showed Eleanor great respect.  Like Richard’s Berengaria, John’s queen was utterly overshadowed as long as Eleanor lived, and John’s one great military triumph was the remarkable rescue he launched upon learning that Eleanor was under siege at Mirebeau by her own grandson, Arthur…..I do love the Angevins, but they were surely the most dysfunctional family since the Oedipus clan.    

        Sadly, there is no such evidence to put forward on Henry’s behalf.  And I admit this is heartbreaking to me, for there can be no doubt that he did love his sons.  Well,   I am not convinced that he loved Richard, not the way he loved Hal and John and to a lesser extent, Geoffrey.  It may be that he and Richard were too much alike not to clash, and his bitterness in the last year of his life is certainly understandable, especially since he seemed unable to realize how much he’d contributed to their final estrangement. 

        Gayle, you are quite right in singling out John’s son, Henry III, as a good father.  He was not a good king, but he loved his children dearly and so did his unpopular queen.  They had a daughter who was unable to speak or hear, and a chronicler described their great grief when she died at age three.  He then revealed the medieval bias toward physical disabilities by dismissing the little girl as “pretty but useless.”  Another well-known story deals with Henry’s son Edward’s reaction to losing a young son at the same time that Henry died.  When a tactless soul remarked that he seemed to grieve more for Henry than for his son, Edward supposedly replied that a man had only one father but could have other sons.   Unfortunately, Edward didn’t take his father as a parental role model, and proved to be a less than loving father himself.   In fact, there is an interesting pattern for 12^th and 13^th century English monarchs.  You have Henry II, a great king, a flawed father; John, an unsuccessful king but apparently an affectionate father; Henry III, a weak king but a very loving father; Edward I, a great king but a distant, demanding father; Edward II, a disastrous king, a caring father; Edward III, a highly successful king, but another disengaged father.    How significant this is, I don’t know, but it is interesting, no?  

       Sarah—Pride and Predator?  I really do hope Jane Austin haunts Elton John to his dying day!   And yes, Trisha, I liked the Firefly series, too, just as I liked Angel.  But I think Buffy was Josh Whedon’s dark classic.     And Suzanne, an interesting question.  No, I don’t reread my books.  I have to go over a book again and again and again when I am responding to editors and copy editors and proof readers until I am so thoroughly sick of the book that I want only to get it out of my life.  Sunne was the worst, for it was over a thousand pages, and by the time I’d finally turned it in for the last time, I was almost ready to start rooting for Tudor to win Bosworth—almost.  

        Lastly, I’d like to recommend some books for those of you who, like Michele, want to do some advance research on Richard’s reign or the Third Crusade.  To date, the definitive biography of Richard is John Gillingham’s Richard I; he has written several books about Richard but the primary biography is the one published in 1999 at almost four hundred pages.  Another good biography of Richard is Ralph Turner’s The Reign of Richard Lionheart, probably the most dispassionate of the many books written about this very controversial king.  Turner’s final chapter is an excellent summary called Richard in Retrospect, in which he proves that Richard’s reputation is tied directly to the values of the historians writing about him.  In other words, Richard serves as the prism through which the biographer reveals more about himself than about this medieval king.  Turner’s one weakness is that he does not deal with Richard’s exploits on the Third Crusade, the central experience of Richard’s life.  I can also recommend Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, edited by Janet Nelson, and The Legends of King Richard I Coeur de Lion, by Bradford Broughton.    And for readers interested specifically in Richard’s crusade and his military career, I can recommend two books very highly.   A military historian, Geoffrey Regan has written Lionhearts, Richard I, Saladin, and the Era of the Third Crusade.   Whereas the Regan book has Richard sharing star billing with Saladin, David Miller’s Richard the Lionheart focuses more upon Richard’s exploits in the Holy Land.  There may be times when you’ll start to wonder where Richard found a phone booth out in the desert to change into his Superman costume, but he honestly did perform these amazing acts of derring-do.  After reading these books, you’ll find it easier to understand why Richard became a legend in his own lifetime and why that legend has endured over the centuries.  You might also wonder if he had a latent death wish.     

      As I’ve already indicated, I think David Crouch’s William Marshal, Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire is the best of the biographies about that celebrated knight.  There are only two English biographies of Berengaria and a 19^th century French one that has never been translated.   I cannot recommend either of these whole-heartedly, for Mairin Mitchell’s Berengaria, Enigmatic Queen of England contains numerous statements that are either factually false or dubious, as her conclusion that Berengaria spoke Basque.  A more scholarly work is Ann Trindale’s Berengaria, in Search of Richard the Lionheart’s Queen, but she is very hostile not only to Richard but to Eleanor as well, and that colors her interpretations of events.  

       There are numerous biographies of Eleanor, more than histories of Henry, which I suspect would annoy him no end.   I have already recommended Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, edited by Bonnie Wheeler.  I have some serious issues with one of the most recent biographies of Eleanor, will save that discussion for a later blog.  Lastly, if you would like to read “ahead” about Joanna, I highly recommend Julius Norwich’s eloquent history of Norman Sicily, Kingdom in the Sun—I love that title, wish I could appropriate it for my novel about Constance!

     Dydd Gywl Dewi Hapus, wishing you all a belated Happy St David’s Day.

March 2, 2009

      I want to thank you all for continuing to suggest books for the rest of us to read.  I’ve gotten very positive feedback from readers about this; it is a wonderful way to find new authors.   

       First of all, I want to alert you to an interview that Elizabeth Chadwick gave on             http://myblog.susannesaville.com/2009/02/04/elizabeth-chadwick-at-the-chatty-cat-cafe.aspx,  in which she discusses her cats and her dog; it is a lot of fun.   Another alert: Dana Stabenow’s latest Kate Shugak mystery, Whisper to the Blood, is finally out.  For those of you lucky enough to live within driving distance of the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona, (people like you, Cindy!), Dana is going to do a reading there on February 17^th at 7 PM, hanging out with the brilliant mystery writer, Laurie King, and Barbara Peters and as many readers as turn out.   And here I am, stuck in the Jersey Pinelands…drat. 

      I finished the novel, The Road to Jerusalem, by the Swedish writer, Jan Guillou, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.   I have another book to recommend, too, an intriguing mystery set in revolutionary Boston, with Abigail Adams as the sleuth.  The title is The Ninth Daughter and the author is Barbara Hamilton; it is coming out as a trade paperback in October, and I think any one who enjoys reading of a bygone time and place will like it.

        It is easy to see Abigail Adams as a detective, given what we know of her intellect and curiosity and self-confidence.   There is a clever mystery series by Stephanie Barron, in which Jane Austen is the protagonist and this works well, too, for Jane was an astute judge of character and a very observant eye-witness, qualities that any good detective needs to have.    But I am so sorry to report that I’ve heard there are two other books about Jane Austen looming on the horizon, one in which Jane is a vampire and the other in which she is a zombie…..and to steal Dave Barry’s favorite line, No, I am not making that up.   I have nothing against vampire novels; I was a huge fan of Josh Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel series.   But for heaven’s sakes, Jane Austen???   

      Let me respond now to some of your questions.  Suzanne, recommendations for biographies, histories, etc, are to be found under the Research Recommendations, as well as in some of the blogs.   I hope to add to the list from time to time, my back and Richard permitting.   You also asked about Bernard Cornwell.  I have read only one of his other historicals, but I am a great fan of his Richard Sharpe series; I can’t think of another writer who does better battle scenes.    Anne, I’ve never read Rosemary Sutcliffe, but I know she was a very well respected British writer.   Any readers familiar with her work?  Or Bernard Cornwell’s non-Sharpe books?   Jeremy, I have never read Sandra Worth.  Again, readers?   Angela, you asked if I were tempted to change history.  If only!  I’d let Richard III win at Bosworth, Simon de Montfort win at Evesham, and the royal House of Gwynedd would be ruling Wales to this very day. 

      Leigh, I am in total agreement with you about the importance of language.   I just finished a chapter set in Sicily, which had three official languages—Arabic, Greek, and Latin.  The people themselves spoke Arabic, Greek, and French, and those who’d settled from Lombardy spoke an Italian dialect,   In Devil’s Brood, I had characters speaking Norman-French, the purer French of the Ile de France, Breton, the lengua romana (today called langue d’oc or Occitan) of Eleanor’s domains, Welsh, and English.    I always have to ask myself which language a character would have been likely to speak, and take this into account if I have someone snooping around and eavesdropping!  And the reason the dialogue in Sunne differed so markedly from subsequent books is that Sunne was the only novel in which my characters were actually speaking English.  What you get in the other books is a “translation” of French or Welsh, etc.   Having said that, I think I would probably do some tinkering with the Sunne dialogue if I could go back in time, as I occasionally had a tin ear; this was my first book and it was therefore a learning experience.  

       Gayle, we do not know if Edward I permitted Davydd ap Gruffydd’s young sons to be educated or attend Mass.  We know they were cruelly separated from their mother, and an order is extant in which instructions were given in 1305 to confine Owain in a cage at night.   However, at least Edward spared the lives of the boys, who were five and three at the time of their capture.  When Heinrich VI seized the Sicilian crown in 1194, his rival was a four year old boy; Heinrich sent the child to Germany, where he was castrated and blinded and died soon afterward.  

        Lastly, I want to respond to your interesting question about bathing, Kristen.  One of the myths of the MA is that people went into the sea every ten years to bathe and were allergic to soap.   Not true.   Obviously the highborn were able to bathe more frequently because they had servants to do the heavy lifting, to lug the buckets of heated water up to their bedchambers, etc.  Since castles were so drafty, I don’t imagine that people wanted to take many baths in the dead of winter, but daily washing in a basin was done by the upper classes, and hands were always washed before and after meals in the great halls.   Since I usually am writing of people in positions of power, my characters are cleaner than the less affluent members of medieval society.   We know that King John took a bath every ten days to two weeks or so, for money was paid to his laundress for each bath and carefully entered into the account books.   Edward I’s young son, Henry, was sickly and indeed did not survive his childhood; a gallon of wine was added to his bath on Pentecost for health reasons.   Cities and many towns had public baths, and medieval manuscripts often show people bathing.   The historian, Margaret Wade Labarge concluded that the standard of cleanliness for the medieval upper classes was much higher than the standards prevailing in the 16^th-18^th centuries, and my own research supports her contention—which is why I have been known to joke that it was the Tudors who raised grime to an art form. 

      Another myth is that medievals knew nothing of sanitation.  Cities hired men to clean the streets, and malodorous occupations like butchers, tanners, etc, were banished to the outskirts of town.   There were laws against dumping chamber pots out of windows; London even had laws requiring the leashing of pet dogs.   Obviously not all were law-abiding, good citizens, and many of these ordinances were ignored.  But the same can be said of us.

     I’d meant to continue our discussion about historical accuracy in novels, but before I knew it, I had a blog that would have rivaled Moby Dick in length.  The tone was strikingly different, too, for I become quite indignant over some of the more egregious mistakes in historical writing.  So I am saving my soapbox rant till next time.  Since it is already partially written—and since my back pain is finally easing up—I ought to have it ready for posting in record time, a week or less.

       Meanwhile, I know our hearts go out to my Australian readers; many prayers are being said for your besieged country.  I think that photo of the smoke-blackened fire-fighter tenderly offering his bottle of water to a frightened and burned little koala will long remain in our memories; for those who haven’t seen it, I’ve been told it is on You-Tube.

       Happy Valentine’s Day to all.  Henry and Eleanor’s daughter Joanna was a Valentine’s Eve bride, wedding King William of Sicily on February 13, 1177.

February 11, 2009

Greetings to all.  I am sorry it has taken me so long to post another blog entry, but my herniated disks chose this time to flare up again and I’ve had to ration my time at the computer, much to my (and Richard’s) frustration.   We ran into technical difficulties with my on-line chat on January 19^th; their server kept crashing.  They are contacting my publicist at Putnam’s and we’ll see if we can reschedule it.  I’m feeling snakebit, for I also encountered computer troubles while I was doing a chat at the Historical Fiction On-line forum; it is almost enough to make me believe in vengeful Tudor ghosts.

     Let’s start with some of your posted comments and queries.  Meghan, I don’t think there are transcripts for most on-line chats, at least for this one.  Mary, I don’t have any New Jersey readings scheduled at present, though I hope to do one on behalf of the Atlantic County Women’s Shelter later in the year.  I am reluctant to take on any PR obligations until my health “issues” are resolved.  I’m feeling better than I was, but I have limited energy and tire very easily.  This is why I haven’t been able yet to add book recommendations for my earlier novels, Suzanne. 

       Julia, I am glad that you and others like the title “Land Beyond the Sea.”  I’ll probably use Outremer as the working title for my convenience since it is short and then suggest the translated version to my publishers.   What do you all think?   Does Land Beyond the Sea work for you?   I have never had any interest, though, Julia, in writing about Isabella and Edward II and Roger Mortimer; their story is too grim for me.   And I have no desire to write about Edward III either.  But after my books about Balian of Ibelin and Queen Constance, I very much want to write about Owain Glyndwr, and so Richard II will be a character in Owain’s story.   So will John of Gaunt.  I decided that I didn’t want to write a novel with John of Gaunt as the main character, though, not wanting to compete with a cult classic, Anya Seton’s Katherine.  

       Susan, I’ll relay your query about Kindle to St Martin’s Press; assuming I can deliver Lionheart on schedule—August, 2010—the publication date would probably occur in the autumn of 2011.  Elizabeth, I have never read  the Matthew Shardlake mysteries; aren’t they set in Tudor times?  Lastly, I want to answer your question, Victoria, about John’s whereabouts in June, 1189.  He disappeared after Henry’s flight from Le Mans and we don’t know where he was during the weeks leading up to Henry’s death.  In Here Be Dragons, I had his last meeting with Henry at Chinon, but when I researched Devil’s Brood, I became convinced that John parted from Henry much earlier, at Le Mans. 

     Now…I have several books to recommend, with great enthusiasm.  I have finished Elizabeth Chadwick’s A Place Beyond Courage, her novel about John Marshal and a time “when Christ and his saints slept.”  It took me so long because I do what you do, Tye; when I enjoy a book, I like to slow down and savor it.   Elizabeth’s John Marshal and mine (in Saints) are not carbon copies, but that is inevitable when we are writing about people who really lived.  Authors take the “known facts” and then interpret them in our own way, which is perfectly fair.  What is important is to get those “known facts” right.  Elizabeth’s John Marshal is a compelling and convincing man of his time, and I am sure that anyone who enjoyed my Saints will also enjoy A Place Beyond Courage.  It is available in paperback now in both the US and the UK.

      Next I want to alert you to a fascinating novel set in 12^th century Scandinavia, The Road to Jerusalem, by Jan Guillou.    Jan Guillou is a best-selling Swedish author who has written an acclaimed trilogy about the Crusades.  The Road to Jerusalem, the first book, will be published by Harper-Collins in May, 2009.  The trilogy is being made into a film, too; you can learn more at www.arnthemovie.com    I have read about 125 pages so far and I am enthralled by it, pure and simple.  The first book deals with the main character’s life in what would later become Sweden; the second one follows him to the Holy Land as a Knight Templar; the third takes him back to his homeland and the woman he loved.  Jan Guillou is an extraordinarily gifted writer and once you enter Arn’s world, you’ll want to stay—at least until you can finish the trilogy! 

       For a complete change of pace, I offer you The Adventures of Alianore Audley, which Elizabeth Chadwick kindly brought to my attention.   It is set during the Wars of the Roses, with Alianore acting as a spy for Edward IV and Richard III.   I am not sure how to classify the book, for it is not a historical novel in the true sense.  It is a spoof, I suppose, but a very clever one and done from a Yorkist perspective, so naturally I enjoyed it!  I realize it may not be to everyone’s taste, so I am going to quote a few passages to let you judge for yourselves.  Here the tart-tongued Alianore is speaking of her husband (whom she loves). 

     “Roger wore his collar of golden Yorkist suns to show that he was one of the king’s knights, ludicrous piked shoes to show that he was fashionable, and a massive codpiece to show that he had a vivid imagination.”    And here she describes Elizabeth Woodville (whom she does not love) as “Elizabeth too-sexy-for-her-hennin Woodville.”   And this is her “take” on the third marriage of Margaret Beaufort (the mother of Henry Tudor) to Thomas Stanley.  “She and Stanley having fallen deeply in love with each other’s money.”   

     The author, Brian Wainwright, has also written a “serious” historical, Under the Fetlock, set in the reign of Richard II, and I have it on my To Read List.  You have to be knowledgeable about a time period to be able to spoof it successfully.   As for Alianore’s adventures, if you like Monty Python, you’ll like Alianore. 

     For a complete change of pace, I want to mention a mystery novel, Dog On It by Spencer Quinn, which will be published in February, 2009 by Atria Books.  I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys mysteries, dogs, laughter, and good writing.  Spence pulls off something remarkable—his narrator is a dog, and he manages to make Chet sound and act like a dog throughout the book.  Check out Chet’s blog at www.chetthedog.com and you’ll see what I mean.

     Finally, the British writer Jules Watson has a new novel coming out in February, 2009 called The Swan Maiden, a lyrical retelling of the legend of Deirdre, the “Irish Helen of Troy.”  It is not available yet in the UK, unfortunately, but British readers can order it from Amazon.

     I thought I’d close by answering a reader’s recent question, for I am sure others have wondered about it, too.  She wanted to know why Henry is called Fitz Empress in his trilogy but I refer to his son as John Plantagenet in Here Be Dragons.   Henry chose to call himself Fitz Empress rather than Fitz Count, preferring to stress his mother’s more rarified status.  The term Plantagenet did not come into use until three centuries later; I believe that Richard, Duke of York was the first to claim it as a surname.  As some of you probably know, Henry’s father Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, liked to wear a sprig of planta genesta in his cap—or so the legend goes.  I couldn’t resist having one of Henry’s spies use planta genesta as a code word in Devil’s Brood.

       John would not have called himself Plantagenet, but when I wrote Dragons, I chose to simplify things and go with the familiar name for their dynasty.  Writers are faced with choices like this all the time.  For example, the term “Byzantine Empire” did not come into use until the 19^th century.  But if it was just a passing reference, I have occasionally used it in one of my books for clarity, knowing my readers would then understand I was speaking of Constantinople.  But when their empire actually figures in the storyline, as in Lionheart, I prefer to refer to it by its medieval name—the empire of the Greeks.   It is a bit unwieldy, but has the virtue of being accurate.   To show you how confusing it can be, though, the Byzantines never called themselves Greeks; they considered themselves to be Romans.  And then we have the Holy Roman Empire, of course, which was actually Germany! 

           So….do you prefer that a historical writer use medieval names even if they are unfamiliar to you?   Or would you prefer that the writer make use of the familiar albeit modern names?   Henry and Eleanor wouldn’t have called it the English Channel, but I use that phrase in my narrative and I feel comfortable using the words “the channel” in dialogue.  In A Place Beyond Courage, Elizabeth Chadwick has John Marshal call it the “Narrow Sea.”    Whether that is historically accurate or a very clever invention on her part, I thought it worked quite well and paid her the highest compliment one writer can offer another, that I wish I’d come up with that.   I was pleased recently to be able to confirm that the term “Mediterranean Sea” was used in the MA, and I am now trying to decide whether to go with “Straits of Messina” or “Far de Meschines”.   Of course now you know why it takes me so long to write one of my books.  I believe the correct term is “obsessive-compulsive.”   

     In my next blog, I would like to talk about historical accuracy and what writers owe the reading public.  But if there are any subjects you’d like me to address, let me know and I’ll certainly give them consideration.   Till then, I hope you enjoy the books I’ve recommended and I hope, too, that you keep sharing your own recommendations with us all.   Finding a new book or new author is a joy for anyone who loves to read.

January 25, 2009

     Thank you all for taking part in our first book giveaway.  It ended at midnight and the winner is Anne Meltzer.   As soon as you send me your address, Anne, I’ll put your copy in the mail to you.   This was fun and I’ll like to do it again from time to time.  When a hardback book is remaindered (goes out of print), an author is usually given the opportunity to buy it at cost, and most of us do so.  Sometimes an order goes astray; I never had any spare copies of Here Be Dragons because of such a slipup.   I’ve exhausted my supply of Sunne in Splendour over the years, and am almost out of copies of When Christ and His Saints Slept.  I do have extra copies of The Reckoning and Time and Chance.  I also have paperback copies of most of the historicals and the mysteries.  Would you be interested in a future giveaway with The Reckoning or Time and Chance or one of the paperbacks as the prize?

        Thank you so much for the vote of confidence in my writing; that means more than I can say.  I loved your comments, which were thoughtful and insightful and occasionally funny, and will respond to them at a later date.  I was just using the 21^st century California book as a hypothetical, so you needn’t worry—no way I’d ever want to write a book set in our time!  

        I hope you all had a good New Year’s.   I spent mine with my editor on Long Island and had a lovely visit; we had a dramatic snowstorm on New Year’s Eve which was great fun since we didn’t have to go out in it.   We also got to discuss my ideas for books after Lionheart—writers don’t feel secure unless we have other books glimmering on the horizon; we also need time to think about future books and let them marinate mentally.  I’ll start with the bad news, at least for my mystery readers.  The Justin de Quincy books are in limbo for now.  The sales have dropped off and my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic prefer that I concentrate upon the historical sagas until the economy improves.  I hope my mystery readers understand that the market dictates a decision like this; there are so many authors writing mysteries these days that the competition is intense.   But I haven’t abandoned Justin, hope to resurrect him when circumstances allow it.

     So I will not be doing a mystery after Lionheart, as originally planned.  What is next then?   Well, it is not carved in stone, but it seems likely now that I will be staying in the 12^th century for my next two books—which makes me very happy since this is the century in which I feel most at home.   Remember I mentioned my interest in writing about the real Balian of Ibelin?   Well, my editor likes the idea, too.   For those of you who’ve seen Kingdom of Heaven, my Balian and Orlando Bloom’s Balian share the same name, but not much else.  Well, they are both tall, and they both held Jerusalem against Saladin, but that‘s about it.    I’ve always thought that reality usually trumps fiction when we’re dealing with the MA.  What scriptwriter could top the antics of the Angevins?  And the real Balian of Ibelin’s life was so dramatic that it did not need any Hollywood embellishments. 

      Nor was drama lacking in the life of Constance de Hautville, heiress to the throne of Sicily.   She may not have been threatened by Byzantine pirates as Eleanor of Aquitaine was on her way home from Crusade; interestingly enough, Eleanor was saved by Constance’s father, King Roger II, whose fleet came to her rescue.  But Constance faced down a mob when they burst into her residence in Salerno and came close to losing her life.   And this was only one of the extraordinary episodes in the life of this strong-willed, remarkable woman.  When I first discovered her story, I remember thinking that she deserved a book of her own, and I am delighted that there is a good chance this may come to pass.  

        One of the many aspects of writing about Balian and Constance that appeals to me is the spillover from Lionheart.  Balian will be a character in my account of Richard I’s crusade, as he was a key player in the politics of Outremer, their name for the Holy Land, loosely translated as “the land beyond the sea.”   I think that would be a good title; anyone agree with me?    And Joanna will have a role in Constance’s book, for the latter was the aunt of Joanna’s husband, King William II, and Joanna loyally supported Constance’s claim to the Sicilian throne.  

         Again, circumstances could force a change of plans.  But as of now, this is the path I hope to travel after Lionheart is done.   And it is very heartening to know you’re all willing to travel it with me.   

           I almost forgot.  I am doing a live web chat at the Schuler e-Studio on Monday, January 19^th, 2009, at 8 PM.  You can visit the website at www.Schulerbooks.com for further details.   I hope some of you will drop in.

January 7, 2009

Hi, everyone.  I am sorry there was such a lapse since my last blog, but like most of you, I got caught up in the pre-Christmas craziness.  And of course I have Richard Coeur de Lion’s hot breath on the back of my neck, as he is very impatient to launch his crusade.   If I thought Henry and Eleanor were prima donnas, I suspect Richard is going to make them seem positively saintly.   I decided this would be a good time to respond to the questions and comments that have been posted about my past blogs.   And I thought, too, that it would be fun to stage a Christmas giveaway.   So….starting from when this blog is posted until Epiphany, January 6^th, 2009, any one who posts a comment about this blog will be entered in a drawing.   Once Epiphany is past, I will pick one name at random from the lot, and that person gets an autographed copy of Devil’s Brood.

     Now I’ll start with my last blog, The Poisoned Pen.  Michelle, I loved your observation that Ranulf is an onion and Hywel is a mushroom.    And Suzanne, you are absolutely correct that Maud, the Countess of Chester, is a mushroom.  I’d never intended for her to have such a large role in Saints, much less Time and Chance and Devil’s Brood.  But from her first appearance, she seized center stage and that was that.   Soon she was facilitating Ranulf’s adulterous affair, dealing deftly with her unstable, dangerous husband, and showing quite a taste for the spotlight.   Before I knew it, she’d become a close friend and confidante of Eleanor, too, thus ensuring her appearance in the rest of the series—clever lady.  We don’t know if they really had such a friendship, but both women had so much in common that it made sense to me.   I am really going to miss Maud in Lionheart, for she died in August of 1189.

      Jenna, I agree with you about Mary Tudor.   I do feel sorry for her, notwithstanding all the blood on her hands.  She was obviously emotionally damaged by her dreadful childhood and girlhood and by the cruel way her father treated her mother.  There is something pathetic about Mary: her desperate need to be loved, her unhappy marriage, and her phantom pregnancy.  That doesn’t mean I would have wanted to live during her reign, though! 

       Jeremy, you are so right about the Tattered Cover.  Next to the Poisoned Pen, it is my favorite independent bookstore.   And I laughed at your comment about the Angevins “sucking me back in,” for that made me think of the line from one of the Godfather films, where Michael Corleone complains that just when he thinks he has gotten out (of the Mafia), they pull him back in.       Sara, I liked your observation that the world begins with Eleanor and Henry, ends temporarily after Richard III’s death, and resumes with the Stuarts, for that is my view of English history, too.   Lastly, I want to thank Britta for recommending John Julius Norwich’s trilogy about the Byzantine Empire.  I am such a fan of his writing, love the two books he wrote about the Norman kingdom of Sicily, The Normans in the South and The Kingdom in the Sun.   I am making great use of the latter book in my research for Lionheart; you may remember that Henry and Eleanor’s daughter Joanna was sent off at age eleven to wed the King of Sicily.   I’ve become so intrigued by Norman Sicily that I am giving serious consideration to writing about it; more on that at a later date. 

       Brief detour here.   Do you want authors to stay within a certain time frame?  For example, Margaret George has written books set in 16^th century England (Henry VIII and Mary, Queen of Scots) the Biblical era (Mary Magdalene) and ancient Greece (Helen of Troy.)  Colleen McCullough is another writer who feels free to follow her own impulses. Would you prefer that a writer “specialize,” if you will, or time travel back and forth across the centuries?  

     I am guessing that if I had an inexplicable urge to write a novel set in 21^st century California, a lot of you would bail on me, right?   But what if I continued to write historical novels, just not medieval historicals?   For a brief time, I played around with the idea of writing about the ancient Roman Republic, for I’d always been interested in the Gracchi brothers.   And then I found myself wanting to write a novel about the American Revolution, approaching it as our first civil war.   In that, I have support from John Adams, who estimated that a quarter of his countrymen were rebels, a quarter were Tories, and the rest were sitting on the fence.    In all honesty, it isn’t likely I’ll get to indulge these impulses, not unless I can live to be 110, for it would be incredibly time-consuming to research and plough virgin territory.   And then I’d have to convince my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that I hadn’t lost my mind!  I guess it is lucky for me that I feel so at home in the MA.

       But assume for a moment that I could find a way to make it work.  Would you be willing to follow me to 18^th century America or ancient Rome?    Or would you prefer that I continue to focus upon the medieval world?   And what if I strayed from my usual turf, England, France, and Wales?   Would a novel set in 12^th century Sicily or 12^th century Outremer (the Holy Land) attract your attention if you came upon it in a bookstore?   And yes, those are not idle questions, since I am seriously tempted to write of Constance, the daughter of King Roger II of Sicily, wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich (a nasty piece of work if ever there was one) and mother of Frederick II.   And I am drawn, too, to Balian of Ibelin, the real man, not Orlando Bloom’s improbable fictional blacksmith in Kingdom of Heaven, a film that—like Braveheart—had me muttering into my popcorn and upsetting other movie viewers. 

       I’d planned to go on and answer some more questions from past blogs, but I am already on page three, so I’ll save that for another time.   I want to thank you all for the eloquent comments about the importance of Author’s Notes; it was wonderful to get such validation.  My Welsh princes would have wished you Nadolig Llawen and Henry and Eleanor a Joyeux Noel, but I’ll settle for Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays..   And don’t forget, any comments about this blog automatically enter you in the Devil’s Brood drawing.     See you next year.

December 24, 2008

     My Scottsdale sojourn was great fun.  Visits to the Poisoned Pen always go well; if you believe, as I do, that independent bookstores need to be supported by readers, check out their website at www.poisonedpen.com.     The  PP customers are invariably enthusiastic and receptive, people who love books, and what greater compliment can there be than that?     Diana Gabaldon and Dana Stabenow kindly lent their star-power to my event, and we discussed books with one another and the audience, with Barbara Peters gently nudging the conversation in the right direction from time to time.   The Poisoned Pen began life as a mystery book store, but Barbara has inclusive instincts and she always found room for my historical sagas, just as she did for Diana’s Outlander series; now the Poisoned Pen has branched out into “good fiction, history, books on dogs and cats—whatever the staff likes.”    Barbara’s husband, Rob, is a superb cook, and so I was very well fed during my stay, although I had to miss his culinary triumph, the TurDucken that he was planning to cook for Thanksgiving—a turkey stuffed with duck, stuffed with chicken, and how much more medieval can you get than that?   To see Rob’s  TurDucken, click onto this link.  http://tinyurl.com/599k2q     

          Of course turkeys were not known in the Old World, but the medievals did love exotic recipes like that.   One such was a “cockentrice,” an odd concoction in which the front half of a chicken was sewn to the back half of a pig, and vice versa.   Another strange delicacy was a “glazed pilgrim,” a pike that was boiled at the head, fried in the middle, and roasted at the end, accompanied by roast lampreys to serve as the pilgrim’s staff.    But as alien as some of the medieval dishes sound to us, I think that the Romans’ enjoyment of roasted mice is far more bizarre!  

         I got sidetracked by my yearning to sample Rob’s TurDucken, sorry.  Back to the book news I learned at the Poisoned Pen.  Diana’s new Outlander novel, ECHO IN THE BONE, will be published in October of 2009, and the Poisoned Pen is already taking orders for signed copies.   Dana’s next book in her Kate Shugak series, WHISPER TO THE BLOOD, will be published in February of next year; I am already starting to count the days for that one.   If you’ve attended any of my book signings, you’re sure to have heard me rave about Dana’s Alaskan mysteries; Kate Shugak is one of the most compelling and vivid characters I’ve encountered in print.   I can also recommend Dana’s latest book, PREPARED FOR RAGE, a gripping account of a terrorist’s plot to strike at an American icon; to research it, she actually spent two months aboard the US Coast Guard cutter Munro.   You might also want to check out Dana’s website at www.stabenow.com, for she has posted a video that offers a tongue-in-cheek summary of all fifteen of the Kate Shugak books to date; it is faster than the proverbial speeding bullet and a lot funnier.  I hadn’t visited her website for a while and was interested to find a listing for all the reviews she’s posted on Amazon.com.  Naturally I had to check this out—I’ll go to great lengths to avoid doing my own work.  I was delighted to discover that Dana also loves one of my favorite books, Farley Mowat’s THE BOAT WHO WOULDN’T FLOAT, a hysterical account of his obsession with a schooner that seemed bound and determined to commit suicide and take him down with it.  While I’m at it, I might as well recommend two other Mowat books that I love: THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE and NEVER CRY WOLF.  And Dana also likes my own favorite of Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael series, THE VIRGIN IN THE ICE.  I bought this many years ago when I stopped in a Shrewsbury bookshop on my way into Wales, and I was  so taken with it that I actually drove back to Shrewsbury to buy as many other Brother Cadfael books as I could find.   But I still think THE VIRGIN IN THE ICE is the best of the lot, and am glad that Dana agrees with me.   Any other Brother Cadfael fans out there besides me and Julie?

           I was delighted to learn from Barbara that Lindsey Davis has a new Falco mystery coming out next May, earlier in the UK for you lucky British readers; the title is ALEXANDRIA.   And good news for Carrie–Laurie King will be bringing out a new Mary Russell mystery in May, which should be of interest to Sherlock Holmes fans, too.   I also have great news for fans of P.F. Chisholm’s wonderful Elizabethan mysteries.  After a long hiatus, she is working on another one.   So there is time for those of you who haven’t read her other novels to catch up; the titles are A FAMINE OF HORSES, A SEASON OF KNIVES, A SURFEIT OF GUNS, and A PLAGUE OF ANGELS.  She also writes historical novels under the name Patricia Finney, set in Elizabethan times.   Elizabeth is the only interesting Tudor in my admittedly biased opinion; you think I’ve forgiven Henry Tudor for Bosworth Field?     So I can recommend Patricia’s Elizabethan novels with a clear conscience.   I can’t resist throwing out this query for discussion, though.  Have many of you read Philippa Gregory’s novels about the Tudors?  And what do you think of them?

        I was given a surprise treat by Barbara; she allowed me to read the manuscript of Priscilla Royal’s new mystery, CHAMBERS OF THE DOOMED, which will be published next year.  I am happy to assure Priscilla’s fans that this is her best book yet; she just keeps getting better and better.   Her characters are so firmly grounded in the thirteenth century that reading one of her books is like a form of time travel.    That matters a great deal to me.  No matter how well written a book may be, I cannot enjoy it if the characters seem like anachronisms to me.    I’ve often wondered if others feel as strongly about this as I do.   How much leeway will you allow an author?   Does it matter to you if medieval characters display an enlightenment that was centuries removed from their era?  

         Sometimes I do think that historical novelists are obsessive-compulsive about our writing and researching, and we can occasionally lose touch with the real world.  I was chatting with Patrick, the Poisoned Pen’s Customer Services Manager, when a customer came up to buy some books.   After he left, Patrick asked me if I’d recognized him, and when I confessed I hadn’t, he identified the customer as Luke Wilson.  I’m sorry to say it took a moment for the synapses of my brain to make the connection.   Wilson?  Actor?   Owen Wilson’s brother?     In my defense, though, I am sure I’d have recognized George Clooney.  

         I can’t end this without giving credit to Diana Gabaldon for her marvelous theory about fictional characters.  She divides them into three categories: onions, mushrooms, and acorns.  Onions reveal themselves slowly to the reader, have to be peeled back, layer by layer.  Mushrooms pop up suddenly, without warning, and in full bloom.  And then there are the hard nuts to crack.    I asked if her Lord John was a mushroom, and she agreed that he was.  One of my mushrooms was Davydd ap Gruffydd, brother of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd in FALLS THE SHADOW and THE RECKONING.   He was never supposed to have so much time on center stage, but from his first appearance, he proved to be a born scene-stealer.    I am enjoying the Sebastian St Cyr mysteries by C.S. Harris, and I think her female character, Hero Jarvis, is a perfect example of an onion, revealing a little more of herself in each succeeding book.   In my mysteries, I think Durand de Curzon is a mushroom, albeit a dark mushroom, another character who somehow muscled his way into the storyline before I realized what he was up to.    What do you think of this theory?  Can you think of any other onions, mushrooms, or acorns in my books?       

         The trip would have been perfect if only I could have ended it by saying, “Beam me up, Scotty.”  Unfortunately I had to rely upon US AIR, not the Starship Enterprise, and the return flight was wretched in every sense of the word.  I’ll spare you all the dreary details, but if any of you have your own travel horror stories to share, feel free to vent here!    I hope you all were blessed with a special thanksgiving.  See you next week.

PS  I see there are some additional questions posted, so I will go over them as soon as I can and either answer you privately or in my next blog.

December 1, 2008

     I’d intended to use my recent on-line interview about my dogs to segue into a discussion of the contrast between our attitudes toward animals and those of the medievals.  I still think that will be a good topic for a blog, but I am going to have to put it on hold.  I didn’t have a good week, have been ill again, and I thought I ought to alert you that I still have health “issues,” which might occasionally interfere with my blogs or e-mail responses.  It is frustrating without a doubt, and I am still learning how to live with a chronic illness—actually several of them.  But as soon as I start researching medieval medicine, that quickly cures any inclination to have a “pity party.”   My latest research has been on peritonitis, as I’ve picked that as my disease de jour, a plausible cause of death for one of my characters in Lionheart, and the result is a heightened appreciation for modern medicine!

        Anticipating questions about this, I thought I ought to talk about causes of death.  It is very rare when we actually know what killed a historical figure.  Usually the most we can hope for is the date of death.  If chroniclers mention a lingering illness, that would indicate a disease like cancer.   But when the death was sudden or quick, then writers have to rely upon our imaginations.  

          We know that Hal, Henry’s son, died of the “bloody flux,” or dysentery, which was one of the great killers of the MA; Hal would actually have died of dehydration caused by dysentery, and those are the symptoms I describe in his death scene.  Henry himself most likely died of septicemia, based upon comments he made to William Marshal in the Histoire.  Henry was also suffering from other ailments, including what one chronicler described as “an abscess in his groin,”  and a recurring leg injury that dated back to his being kicked by a horse in 1174.  After researching head injuries at length, I concluded that Geoffrey probably died of an epidural hematoma.  Henry and Eleanor’s daughter Matilda, the Duchess of Saxony, Tilda in DB, died suddenly in June of 1189, and we haven’t a clue as to what caused her death; she was only thirty-three.   At least Henry was spared this grief, for he died without knowing it.  Eleanor was not as fortunate; she gave birth to ten children and outlived all but two of them, her daughter Leonora in Castile and John. 

       With respect to the poor soul who is going to die of peritonitis in Lionheart, we know nothing whatsoever about his fatal illness, only that it was sudden and unexpected and does not appear to have been an accident.   In cases like this, I look for those ailments known to have had a high mortality rate in the MA.   Of course even a minor mishap could prove fatal to medievals, stepping on a nail, for example.   Basically, fictional deaths involve a degree of detective work.   For those of you who share my morbid curiosity about such matters, feel free to ask for all the gory details about the deaths of various characters in my novels.  I’ll be happy to explain why I concluded that Edward IV died of pneumonia or why I chose to let Llewelyn and Joanna’s daughter Elen die of a miscarriage.  At least with my mysteries, it is more straight-forward.  If a character dies, it is of my choosing, and I also get to select the method of demise, usually a bloody one, of course.

        This coming Wednesday, the 19^th of November, I will be in Scottsdale, Arizona  at my favorite bookstore, the Poisoned Pen, making a joint appearance with Diana Gabaldon and Dana Stabenow, and I ought to have some interesting stories to tell upon my return.  Meanwhile, thank you all for the feedback about Author’s Notes.  I am very glad that you find them as valuable as I do.  And thanks, too, Gabrielle, for the wonderful links.  More after Scottsdale.

November 17, 2008

     I am delighted to announce that Danielle Campisi, my brilliant webmaster (webmistress?) has put up a slide-show of the castles featured in Devil’s Brood, complete with haunting background music.  Much of the credit for this new feature must go to Susan Flantzer, who first posted the photos on one of my favorite websites, the Historical Fiction On-line forum.  As soon as I saw the photos, I knew readers of Devil’s Brood had to see them, too.  Be warned, though—they will make you want to head for the airport and catch the next plane for France!  I am now going to add castles for my other books, too.  It will be easy to find castles for my Welsh trilogy; the magnificent Castles of Wales website makes for one-stop shopping.  If any of you have requests for castle photos relating to Sunne or Saints or Time and Chance, do feel free to pass them on, and we’ll do our best.

     We have also added new links to Sharon’s Favorites.  And for those readers who’ve asked me when Devil’s Brood will be available in the Kindle format, just cruise on over to the Amazon mother ship.  You can also get Sunne and Prince of Darkness in Kindle, and we hope that St Martin’s new editions of Here Be Dragons and Falls the Shadow will soon join the list.  I confess that I am not a Kindle fan myself.  I need the tangible feel of the book, need to be able to hold it and read it in bed or even the bath.  But then I’ve been called a Luddite by some of my Kindle-loving friends, so I defer to their judgment.

     Thank you all for continuing to share your author recommendations with us.  I am looking forward to adding these new writers to my To Read List.   I thought I’d return the favor by recommending several books sure to interest my readers, especially those of you who chose Saints as your favorite of my novels.  Elizabeth Chadwick has written a fascinating novel about William Marshal’s controversial father, John Marshal, titled A Place Beyond Courage.  You will find it to be a visit to a familiar neighborhood, with people you already know from Saints:  Stephen, Maude, Robert of Gloucester, Brien Fitz Count, the young Henry.  It is like my favorite line from Casablanca, “Round up the usual subjects.”

     Elizabeth has also written two novels about everyone’s favorite knight, William Marshal, The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion, which I haven’t read as yet, not wanting to be influenced, even subconsciously, by her portrayal of Will until I’d finished Devil’s Brood and now Lionheart.  But I can recommend them without hesitation, based upon the pleasure I am having as I read A Place Beyond Courage.   Her William Marshal novels have been published in both the US and the UK, and while A Place Beyond Courage won’t be published in the States until next year, the English edition can still be purchased on Amazon.  

      When it came to the depiction of the major characters who appear in both Saints and Courage, Elizabeth and I were on the same page, which is not surprising; these were well known historical figures, so we were drawing upon the same sources.  We both feel that we owe it to our readers to adhere to the established historical facts, and if we detour from the beaten path, we believe writers should explain these detours in their Author’s Notes—as when I did a revisionist history of a certain Yorkist king not kindly treated by Shakespeare!

     I’ve always gotten very positive feedback about my Author’s Notes, but I’d still like to throw this open to general discussion.  How do you feel about them?  Do you feel cheated if a historical novel doesn’t include one?  Or do you consider them to be icing on the cake, nice but not essential?    And do you think I should keep fighting my natural instinct to write ANs almost as long as my books themselves or should I just go with the flow?   Of course then I’d need advice on how to get my editor on-board with an AN that might fairly be called a novella!

      I have posted a new interview in my Press Room, one I did with Susanne Saville about my dogs: Cody, the Johnny Depp of Dogdom, and Chelsea, his neurotic little sidekick.  I’d intended initially to devote this blog to a discussion of pets and the vast differences between the medieval attitude toward animals and ours.  But I’ve already spent so much time talking about books that it would probably be best to save the Pet Blog for the next one.   If, in the meantime, you’d like to brag about your own remarkable pets or books you’ve enjoyed about pets (I assume everyone has read Marley and Me!) I’d love to hear from you. 

PS  I’d hoped to add my first photos to this blog, but naturally I ran into a snag.  I will sort it out and add them to the next one.

November 11, 2008

HI, everyone.
     I suspected that Here Be Dragons would win the contest, and it did, with Sunne in Splendour coming in second.  These two are the books most mentioned when readers write to me.  Now, confession time.  Here Be Dragons has always been my own favorite of my books.  In part because, after Sunne, there were actually characters left alive at the end!  And Dragons began my love affair with Wales.  I’d initially meant it to be the story of John and his daughter Joanna. I’d wondered how a woman would react if she discovered that the father she’d adored since childhood was capable of chilling cruelties.  I knew, of course, that Joanna had wed “a Welsh prince,” but he was still a shadowy figure when I moved to Wales in 1982 to research Dragons.  It only took a fortnight, though, for Llewelyn to steal the book right from under John’s nose.  And best of all, Dragons led the way to Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning.  Writers always worry that the well will go dry and we will run out of ideas for future books.  Thanks to Dragons, I was free of these worries for nearly a decade.
     So many of the authors you recommended are favorites of mine, too.  I think Anya Seton’s Katherine and The Winthrop Woman are gems; Green Darkness is another of her books I can recommend.  LIke you, Carrie, I love Lindsay Davis’s Falco series and Laurie King’s clever series about Mary Russell, who just happens to be wed to Sherlock Holmes.  I think Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series is brilliant; he does about the best battle scenes I’ve ever read.  I agree with you Julie, about Edith Pargeter.  I read all of her Brother Cadfael books, written under the name Ellis Peters.  The only books of hers that I have not read are the four novels about the Welsh princes.  By the time I’d done my own Welsh trilogy, I was feeling so possessive of “my” princes that I didn’t want to read about them in another writer’s books.  And the fact that she wrote her books about thirty years before I did was utterly irrelevant!
     Kelly, I have good news for you.  P.F. Chisholm is writing another of her spectacular Elizabethan mysteries.  For those of you not yet familiar with this series, I can’t recommend it highly enough.  I am going to be doing an event at the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, Arizona next month, and Barbara Peters, the owner of the bookshop, is also the publisher of the Chisholm books.  So once I find out when we can expect the next one, I will let you all know.  And Sharon, by now Devil’s Brood should be in Australian bookshops; Penguin published a paperback edition for Australia and New Zealand, although their hardback edition will not be published in the U.K. until February 5th.  And Dave, I do intend to write about Owain Glyndwr in the future.  How could I resist a history like his?
     I will be adding to my Recommended Reading section, suggesting research books for those readers who’d like to learn more about the Angevins in particular and the MA in general.  Obviously I cannot list all of the books I consult while researching a novel.  Those on the list will be some of the histories I found most useful or reliable or just fun to read.  If I don’t mention a biographer, that is usually because I have reservations about the work in question.  So feel free to ask me privately about any omissions that have aroused your curiosity.
     I think I will also add a Lionheart section to the Recommended Reading List since Richard’s story is already well-known and there is no danger of “spoilers.”  The volume of crusader histories is truly astonishing.  I have had to fight some memorable battles in the course of my books, but never as many as will be looming ahead in Lionheart.  I’ve dealt with gifted battle commanders before–Simon de Montfort and Edward I come at once to mind–but Richard’s exploits in the Holy Land were truly the stuff of legend.
     I hope we can continue discussing books we like; this is a wonderful way to find new authors to read.  And if there are any subjects you’d like me to address in one of my blogs, I am always open to suggestions.  If there are any literary websites you’d like to recommend, please share those, too.  I think Elizabeth Chadwick’s website is one of the best for people interest in the MA; do check it out for yourselves.
      Lastly, I want to thank  you for the wonderful, supportive e-mails about my on-going health problems, for your patience when Devil’s Brood kept falling off the radar screen, and for offering such heartening proof that reading is not a dying art and history still matters, now more than ever.
November 3, 2008

     Welcome to my second blog.  I had a very interesting chat recently at the Historical Fiction On-line forum, and several people mentioned one of my books as a particular favorite.  This got me to thinking.  I’d love to know which of my books is the most popular with my readers.  (I have a suspicion, but I don’t want to influence the vote.)  So if some of you would like to tell me your preferences, I promise to reveal my own favorite of my books in my next blog–deal?
     I am always curious about the reading habits of others.  Do most of you prefer historical fiction?  Any particular time period?  Obviously I am obsessed with the MA, but I am also fascinated with Ancient Rome.  I think Steven Saylor’s novels are wonderful and I enjoyed Colleen McCullough’s six book series about the end of the Roman Republic.  I have not yet read her novel about Antony and Cleopatra; any one recommend it?   I also enjoy reading about Egypt, be it Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody series or Michelle Moran’s books about Nefertiti.  What about medieval mysteries?  I am a huge fan of Margaret Frazer, who writes two excellent mystery series set in 15th century England.  In the interest of full disclosure, she is a long-time friend, but I’d enjoy her work even if she’d kidnapped my dog–she is that good.  I can also recommend Sharan Newman, Alan Gordon, and Priscilla Royal, just to name a few of my favorites.  And for historical sagas like mine, naturally Elizabeth Chadwick comes to mind.  If some of you have your own favorites to share, please do join the discussion.  I think the best way to discover new writers is by word of mouth.
October 26, 2008
PS  I am sorry to report that Devil’s Brood’s appearance on the New York Times bestseller list was as fleeting as a shooting star.  FWIW, Time and Chance clung like a barnacle to the list for three weeks, and yet I think Devil’s Brood is the better book.