This may be one of the funniest blogs I’ve run yet, an interview with my fellow writer, Susan Higginbotham.  Full disclosure—Susan is a Lancastrian at heart (or at least a non-Ricardian) but a nice person for all that!   She is the author of a number of well researched and well written historical novels, including The Queen of Last Hopes, The Stolen Crown, and The Traitor’s Wife.  Her newest is Her Highness the Traitor, about one of history’s more intriguing and tragic figures, Jane Grey, the nine days queen, who would go to the block in her seventeenth year.  I was delighted to learn that Susan was writing about Jane, who definitely deserves some time on center stage.    I asked her to stop by for an interview or guest blog.   She has responded with Twelve Tips for Writing About Lady Jane Grey.  Warning:   Do not read this blog while you are drinking any sort of liquid, for you are likely to half-strangle yourselves when you start to laugh.   When you are done laughing, you will want to buy Her Highness the Traitor, which is available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format and I am sure it is available as a Nook, too.    So….here is my guest for the day, Susan Higginbotham.

Twelve Tips for Writing about Lady Jane Grey

Thanks to Sharon for hosting my guest post! Having just published a novel, Her Highness, the Traitor, that includes Jane Grey as a major character, I thought I would share some time-saving tips for other authors who might be writing about this time period. Just follow these 12 handy steps, and you won’t have to do a lick of research!

1. Frances Grey, Jane’s mother, must always be portrayed as grossly obese. The fact that the portrait that this depiction is based upon is not actually of Frances is entirely immaterial. Helpful Hint: Have Frances gnaw on a big turkey leg to underscore your point.

2. Jane Grey must be whipped by her parents at least twice in your novel: once before her wedding day and once before that as a warm-up whipping. The truly dedicated novelist will even allow the Greys to whip their daughter after she becomes queen, just to remind the reader who’s boss. (Be sure to dwell in loving detail on the welts caused by the lashing.)

3. Guildford Dudley can be either effeminate or brutish, depending on your preference. (The experienced novelist can make him both effeminate and brutish, but this isn’t recommended for beginners.) Whether you’ve made him effeminate or brutish, however, Guildford must behave like a sniveling weakling on his way to the scaffold. Bonus: If you ever write about the Wars of the Roses, Guildford’s character can be recycled for use as Edward of Lancaster’s. All you need to do is change the names and costumes.

4. Mary, Jane’s supposedly dwarfish sister, must be hidden away by her parents, who will refer to her at every convenient occasion in the novel as a freak or a monster, preferably to Mary’s face. Ignore the temptation to Google, which will bring you to records showing that Mary Grey accompanied her family on social visits, including one to Princess Mary. Google is your enemy here.

5. Adrian Stokes, Frances Grey’s second husband, must be half Frances’s age. The fact that there is a source showing his precise date of birth, making him only two years younger than Frances, must be studiously ignored. Don’t worry: ignoring the records about Mary Grey will have given you ample practice in doing this. Susan’s Special Tip: Have Frances sleep with Adrian during her marriage to Henry Grey, as well as with the odd stable boy or two. Susan’s Even More Special Tip: Have Henry Grey sleep with Adrian as well, as well as with the odd stable boy or two.

6. Speaking of Frances Grey, it is well known that Frances was the only person in Tudor England, or indeed in England before the twentieth century, to hunt for sport. If Frances isn’t committing Bambi-cide within ten pages of the opening of your novel, while Jane and the local chapter of PETA look on in horror, you need to do a rewrite.

7. While it is important to make Jane’s parents uncaring, brutal, and stupid, the novelist should not go overboard and make them downright evil, because true evilness must be held in reserve for the Duke of Northumberland. If the reader doesn’t come away thinking that “evil Northumberland” is a tautology, you have failed utterly as a writer and need to beg to have your day job back.

8. Edward VI must be sickly from birth; however, he must not die a natural death, but must be poisoned at the hands of Northumberland (who must be, remember, evil). Don’t forget to have Northumberland switch the king’s body with that of a murdered nobody; omitting this detail is the sort of carelessness that can trip up an unwary novelist.

9. Jane must be meek, mild, and terrified of her elders. Ignore the letter written by Jane to Thomas Harding in which she denounces the poor man as the “deformed imp of the devil” and the “stinking and filthy kennel of Satan.” Jane was probably just having a bad day.

10. Jane’s dreadful parents must be bitterly resentful of her scholarship and must attempt to drag her away from her books at every possible juncture. Disregard the fact that Jane’s father was a patron of scholars, and by all means don’t complicate things by making the reader wonder why, if Jane’s parents hated their daughter’s learning so much, they simply didn’t dismiss her tutors and confiscate her books. Historical fiction should not be complicated.

11. Mary I can be allowed some strength of character just long enough to fight the (evil, don’t forget) Northumberland for her throne. Immediately afterward, however, she must turn into a pathetic, lovesick drip, who sends Jane to her death solely to guarantee her marriage to Philip of Spain. (Who can be evil too. But not as evil as Northumberland.)

12. Finally, the “P” words—“puppet” and “pawn”—are vital when writing about Jane Grey. Using just one is the mark of the amateur; the astute novelist will use them both. If you can use them both in the same sentence, why are you reading this list?

Susan, I thank you, my readers thank you, and I am sure that, wherever she is, Jane Grey thanks you, too.

June 12, 2012

Kathryn Warner recently wrote a
wonderful blog about writing historical fiction.  Followers of my blog and Facebook pages know
I tend to be obsessive-compulsive about historical accuracy.  I think my fellow writer Laurel Corona said
it best when she said very succinctly, “Do not defame the dead.”   Kathryn has elaborated upon the premise very
eloquently.  If I ever had unlimited
power over the universe—admittedly a scary thought, even to me—I would make
this required reading for anyone who has the slightest desire to write a
historical novel.   As a benevolent
dictator, I would also “suggest” that all readers of historical fiction read
it, too.  But until I become queen of the
universe, I will have to make do by re-posting, with Kathryn’s permission, her
blog. 

In the interest of full disclosure,
I should mention that Kathryn is a friend of mine; in fact, she has won my
enduring gratitude by translating relevant portions of the German biography of
Richard I by Dr. Ulrike Kessler, Richard I. Lowenherz, Konig, Kreuzritter,
Abenteurer.   Kathryn is also the creator
of a must-visit website for anyone interested in the Middle Ages; here is the
link. http://edwardthesecond.blogspot.com.au/

Now, without further ado, I give you
Kathryn Warner. 

Ten Commandments For Writing About
History And Discussing It Online

10) If you wouldn’t refer to Roger Mortimer as Isabella of France’s ‘straight
lover’, to Alice Perrers as Edward III’s ‘female lover’, or to John of Gaunt’s
‘heterosexual relationship’ with Katherine Swynford – and of course you
wouldn’t – then you shall remember that there is no reason to call Piers
Gaveston or Hugh Despenser Edward II’s ‘gay lover’ or to talk about their
‘homosexual relationship’. Merely ‘lover’ and ‘relationship’ or ‘sexual
relationship’ will suffice; it will be readily apparent to your reader that
Edward, Piers and Hugh were all men and that their relationships were therefore
evidently same-sex. Furthermore, you shall remember that making lame statements
such as “It’s different when men love women” in an attempt to justify
why you think Edward’s (presumed) adultery with men is nasty and icky while his
grandson John of Gaunt’s adultery with Katherine Swynford is fabulously
romantic, looks bigoted. There are ways that we can discuss prejudices of other
eras without making it look as though we share them and expect our readers to
do so too.

Thank you, Kathryn, for allowing me to re-post your blog
here.   I am sure my readers will find it
just as interesting and persuasive as I did.

May 28, 2012

On May 12, 1191, Richard and Berengaria were married at
Limassol in Cyprus.   I’ve mentioned
before that Berengaria has four unique distinctions—she was the only Queen of
England to be married and then crowned in Cyprus, the only royal bride to spend
her honeymoon in a war zone, and the only English queen who never set foot on
English soil; John did issue her several safe-conducts during her long
widowhood, but there is no evidence that she ever used them.  I recently realized that she has another
distinction, a very sad one—she is the only medieval English queen who did not
provide her husband with an heir. 
William Rufus did not even bother to get married, Richard II’s Anne was
still young enough when she died to have harbored hopes, Richard III’s Anne became
terminally ill soon after their son’s death, and once we leave the Plantagenet
dynasty for those ubiquitous Tudors, their fertility track record was a sad
one.  But only Berengaria had to struggle
with history’s cruel judgment of being a “barren” queen, and it is likely she also
blamed herself, although Richard was certainly at fault, too, given how little
time he spent with her upon his release from his German captivity and the
criticism he got from the Bishop of Lincoln for his flagrant adulteries.     Berengaria
is one of the least-known of the English queens and has not been treated very
kindly by historians, many of whom assumed that she must have been dull and
boring and not lively enough to hold her husband’s attention.   This is obviously unfair and lets Richard
off the hook for the part he played in the deterioration of their
marriage.    Lastly, I think she has the
most beautiful name of any English queen—not the clunky Berengaria, but her real
Spanish name, Berenguela.

            A little
while ago, I’d promised to quote from the contemporary chronicles from time to
time.  So here is what they had to say
about Richard and Berengaria.

From the Itinerarium, translated by Helen Nicholson:    “While they were each making arrangements
to begin the journey, messengers came running to inform King Richard that his
mother Queen Eleanor was hurrying after him. 
She had traveled a great distance, but was now very close, and had
brought with her a noble young woman, daughter of the King of Navarre.  Her name was Berengaria and she was the
king’s intended wife.  Attracted by her
graceful manner and high birth, he had desired her very much for a long
time—since he was first count of Poitou. 
So her father the king of Navarre had entrusted her to King Richard’s
mother so that she could take her to King Richard and he could take her as his
wife before he set off on his planned journey across the sea.  Everyone was delighted at their
arrival.” 

The Itinerarium describes the wedding as follows:   “On the following day, a Sunday, on the
Feast of St Pancras, Richard and Berengaria were married at Limassol.  The young woman was very wise and of good
character.  She was there crowned queen.  The Archbishop of Bordeaux was present at the
ceremony, as was the bishop of Evreux and the bishop of Bayonne, and many other
magnates and nobles.  The king was merry
and full of delight, pleasant and agreeable to everyone.”

These passages are from Ambroise’s The History of the Holy
War, translated by Marianne Ailes.

“He (Richard) then made his way beyond the straits, straight
to Reggio whence news had been sent to him that his mother had arrived there bringing
to the king his beloved.  She was a wise
maiden, a fine lady, both noble and beautiful, with no falseness or treachery
in her.  Her name was Berengaria; the
King of Navarre was her father.  He had
given her to the mother of King Richard who had made great efforts to bring her
that far.  Then she was called queen and
the king loved her greatly.  Since the
time when he was count of Poitiers she had been his heart’s desire.” 

Ambroise describes the wedding:  “The next morning the young woman was married
and crowned at Limassol.  She was
beautiful, with a bright countenance, the wisest woman, indeed, that one could
hope to find anywhere.  There was the
king in great glory, rejoicing in his victory and in his marriage to the woman
to whom he had pledged his troth.”

            What is
immediately striking about these accounts is that both chroniclers were under
the impression that Richard was quite smitten with his bride.   I find that very sweet, but I tend to be a
bit skeptical, in part because royal marriages were not love matches and
because I personally don’t think Richard had a romantic bone in his body.   But it is interesting to see what Richard’s
contemporaries thought of his relationship with his bride.  

            For a more
cynical view, I give you Richard of Devizes, who was not present for these
events, here describing Richard’s departure from Sicily.   “The fleet of Richard, king of the English, put
out to sea, and proceeded in this order. 
In the forefront went three ships only, in one of which was the queen of
Sicily and the young damsel of Navarre, probably still a virgin.”   Richard and Berengaria were plight-trothed and
in the MA, that was often considered as binding as the marriage ceremony
itself, so the chronicler thinks Richard may have jumped the gun, so to
speak.  Not very gallant of him to
speculate about that, of course, but he was always a bit snarky.   Listen to what he said about Eleanor, “Queen
Eleanor, a matchless woman, beautiful and chaste, powerful and modest, meek and
eloquent, which is rarely wont to be met with in a woman, who was advanced in
years enough to have had two husbands and two sons crowned kings, still
indefatigable for every undertaking, whose power was the admiration of her
age…”  

So far so good, right?   (Although this must surely be the one and
only time that anyone described Eleanor as “meek.”)  But then he cannot resist making a snide
allusion to the scandal in Antioch, more than forty years in the past.   “Many knew what I wish what none of us had
known.  This same queen, in the time of
her former husband, went to Jerusalem. 
Let none speak more thereof; I also know well.   Be silent.” 

This same monk is the only one to
cast aspersions on Berengaria’s appearance. 
He described her as “a maid more accomplished than beautiful,” though
this is sometimes translated as “more prudent than pretty.”    Richard of Devizes never saw Berengaria,
though.    William of Newburgh, a very
reliable contemporary chronicler, called her “a virgin of famous beauty and
prudence,” although he never saw her, either. 
I find it interesting that historians have usually chosen to quote
Richard of Devizes’s unfavorable assessment of Berengaria’s looks over that of
Ambroise, who actually did see her, possibly because they think royal brides
were described as beautiful as a matter of course.  But why, then, do they accept at face value
the praise given to other queens and princesses?   I think their willingness to see Berengaria
as plain ties in with the tendency to blame her for the failure of her
marriage.    But since both Ambroise and
the author of the Itinerarium believed that Richard had desired Berengaria long
before he wed her, it is unlikely that she was plain, for medievals were as
superficial as we are today and expected their heroes to be handsome and
dashing and their heroines fair and chaste. 
Okay, we’ve done away with the chaste requirement.   J    

To show that medieval chroniclers
were not like today’s press agents for Hollywood stars, I thought I’d conclude
with some descriptions of historical figures that were far from
flattering.  

Katalina of Lancaster,
daughter of John of Gaunt and Constanza of Castile, wife of Enrique III of
Castile (1372-1418)
“The queen was tall of body and very fat. She was pink and white in her
complexion and fair. In her figure and movements she seemed as much like a man
as a woman… she was not very well ordered in her body and had a serious affliction
of palsy which did not leave her tongue properly loose or her body movements
free.”
From the Generaciones y semblanzas of Perez y de Guzman

Guifred Pilosus, Count of
Barcelona (died 897)
“…[H]e was hairy in places not normally so in men…”
From the Gesta comitum barcinonensium

Frederick II, Holy Roman
Emperor, son of Heinrich von Hohenstaufen and Constance de Hauteville.

“The Emperor was covered with red
hair, was bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200
dirhams at market.”
From the Muntazam by Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi

Kálmán, King of Hungary, son
of Géza I and Sophie of Looz, father of István II (1170-1116)
“…shrewd and learned… hairy, shaggy, squinting, hunchbacked, lame, and
stuttering.”
From the Chronicon Pictum Vindobonense

Amaury I, King of Jerusalem,
son of Fulk and Melisende of Jerusalem, husband of Agnes of Edessa and Maria
Komnene, father of Baldwin IV and Isabella (1136-1174)
“He was a man endowed with worldly experience, very shrewd and circumspect
in his deeds. He had a slight impediment of the tongue, not so much that could
be considered a defect, but so that he had no elegance in spontaneous, flowing
speech… His body was of pleasing stature, as if it had been measured
proportionally so that he was taller than the average, but smaller than the
very tall… His face was attractive… His eyes were bright, and somewhat
protruding; his nose, like his brother’s, aquiline; his hair yellow, and
slightly receding; his beard covered his cheeks and chin with pleasing
fullness. However, he had an uncontrollable laugh, which made him shake all
over… He was fat beyond measure, in such a way that he had breasts like a
woman, hanging down to his belt…”
From the Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum of William of
Tyre (c.1130-1185)

The description of King Amaury of
Jerusalem comes from Deeds Beyond the Sea by the man considered one of the
greatest medieval historians, William, Archbishop of Tyre.   He also gives us a fascinating glimpse of
William de Montferrat, older brother of Conrad de Montferrat, who was wed to
Sybilla, Queen of Jerusalem, later the wife of Guy de Lusignan.  He describes William as handsome and bold and
intelligent, but then adds that he was inclined to drink too much and when he
did, he was very quick to anger.   Such a
pity he died in 1186, for I’d have loved to have read what he would have said
about the English-French feuding during the Third Crusade!    

Well, it is time to return to the
dungeons of Trifels Castle, where the most dangerous enemies of the Holy Roman
Empire were imprisoned and where Coeur de Lion spent a few very uncomfortable
weeks in April of 1193.    Once I can
spring Richard from Trifels, I will surface again. 

May 12, 2012

I know you have quite a few rescue animals that are now part
of your family.  Can you tell us about
them?

I’d love to… Considering all my
children have fur, I could talk about them all day long!  My pack is almost a manageable size these
days, although much smaller than in the mid-90s.  There was a time in our early years when we
had over a dozen dogs and several dozen cats. 
That’s the point at which I realized the line between helping &
hoarding had become far too thin! 

We currently have 2 donkeys, 5
dogs, and 5 cats, along with 2 foster dogs and 2 foster kittens; all of which
are rescues.  Although each one has an
amazing story of rescue, I’ll just give you just the basics here. 

Dominick is 12, and was our
first donkey saved from a farm in north FL where he was being bullied by their
horses.  He was very well cared-for, but
the family knew he’d be better off on a farm without equine.  Dominick is a very sweet & sensitive boy
who loves affection.  Shortly after he
arrived, we realized Donkeys are pack animals and he needed a friend, so we
sought out a 2^nd donkey to keep him company.  A local family with over 100 acres goes to
the auctions every month and buys all the pregnant female donkeys and sells
their offspring to afford to save more moms. 
Jasper came to us at only a few months old and is now almost 5 years
old.  Although he’s far less affectionate
with us, he & Dominick are best-buds. 
Little did we know then that donkeys can live to be 40+ years old and
will likely outlive us!

Amos is our oldest dog, a 14 yr
old flat-coat retriever, chow mix.  At a
few months old he was found outside a convenience store with an old man hugging
a bottle of wine.  The dog was begging
everyone for food.  Alan asked the man if
the dog was his, and the man said “You can have him for $5.”  Alan gave the man $5 and named him after his
grandfather, Amos Starnes.

Mai Peanut (Pnut for short) is a
puppy-mill puppy and at 12 years old has always been the most sickly of all the
dogs I’ve ever had.  She has Discoid
Lupus disease, incontinence, and a severe obsession with tennis balls.  She is also the love of our lives!  Pnut is the sweetest, most sensitive and
loyal dog anyone could ever hope for, and we have been very lucky to have her
in remission – for almost 2 years now!

Bella & Luna are twins and
are my 3 year old Echo Dogs.  Rescued
from a neglectful home in Nebraska, they are the reason I volunteer to help the
white shepherds of Florida.  In 2009, I
completed Echo Dogs’ adoption application stating that I wanted a bonded pair
of young females.  I didn’t care of their
color, or if they were mix-breeds, but preferred sisters. Our first two
shepherds, Barkley & Tasha were sisters and after they died – well into
their “teens”, we wanted another bonded pair. 
I was warned it could take a long time to find such a pair, but I
assured them I was patient.  Six long
months later, Laura with Echo Dogs contacted me about “the twins” and we jumped
at the chance to get them.  Laura drove
from Chicago to Tennessee, and we drove from FL to meet her and bring our girls
home.  Bella is also known as Sugar Belle
– the sweetest, smartest southern belle you’d ever meet.  Unlike her sister, Luna is about as loony as
they get, and has limited eyesight. 
She’s very untrusting, reserved, and skeptical, but loves me with her
entire heart.

Willow is the newest addition to
our pack – and also an Echo Dog.  She and
her sister were incarcerated at a FL animal control together and Echo Dogs
agreed to pull them both on a Sunday night. 
By 8 am Monday morning her sister was already dead, so a fellow rescue
angel rushed to the kennel and got Willow out immediately.  Willow’s foster had to leave town for a week,
so she came here – and never left! 
Despite her foster’s willingness to take her back, and then finding the
“perfect” adopter, Alan decided Willow was HIS dog, and so she is.

As for the cats, they mostly
just “show up”.  Leo’s mom was a pregnant
stray and we chose to keep Leo and adopted out his siblings.  He’s 13, and a long-haired orange tabby.  His mom, Baby Doll lived out her life here as
well.  Tigger is 7 and Sissy is 5 and are
both long-haired orange tabbies.  They
simply arrived at our home looking for food – probably from being dumped in the
orange grove next door.  Tater-Tot is 5
years old and is a short-haired orange tabby. 
I’ll get into his rescue story shortly. Truffles (sweet as chocolate)
was found trying to cross a busy road at 3 weeks old.  He was so tiny, he took up residence in a
Kleenex box and still had room to move around. 
He’s now 4 years old and is a grey tiger-stripe tabby.  All touched our hearts and became part of our
family instead of being adopted.  And as
you can see, it helps to be an orange tabby if you’re a cat looking for a home
in our neighborhood!

Two Foster Dogs:  Gee is a long-coat, pure-bred white German
Shepherd Dog.  He’s 5 years old,
neutered, micro-chipped and up to date on shots.  Gee is a very strong-willed dog and will need
an experienced handler that can continue his training.  Snoopy is a German Short-Haired Pointer,
Beagle mix.  She’s 2 years old, spayed,
micro-chipped and up to date on shots. 
Currently going through heartworm treatment, Snoopy will be available
for adoption on May 1^st.  She
is a very sweet girl who loves belly-rubs, playing with balls and runs like the
wind.  She is great with kids & dogs,
but should not be in a family with cats or birds.

Two Foster Kittens:  As of March 25^th are about two
weeks old, found in an abandoned home and currently with a loving foster being
bottle fed around the clock.  They will
be available for adoption on 4/28, or got to my vet for adoption.  Both long-haired, one is white with a few
charcoal spots and the other is a grey tabby.

Sometimes it’s a tough call on
who to keep and who to adopt out.  I
often think it would be better for them all to go to a family where they’d be
#1 or #2 rather than having to settle into such a large pack here with us.  And that’s what happens most often; we end up
keeping the “unadoptables” and letting the most balanced and friendly pets go
to other homes.  But every now and again,
some just worm their way into our hearts and we find a way to spread our love
just a little bit further.

            One of the
many benefits of adopting Tristan is that we’ve become friends.  You’ve told me some amazing, unforgettable
stories about the animals that you’ve rescued over the years.  Could you share a few of your more memorable
experiences with us?

I’ve often said that some of my
most treasured friends were brought to me by strays.  And that was certainly the case with you and
that big, goofy boy of yours!  Aside from
Tristan, one of my most memorable rescue experiences was my own kitty,
Tater-Tot; mostly because it gave me the opportunity to impact a young human
life as well as a pet.  So often as
rescuers, we get fixated on “saving the pet” and sometimes forget the human
aspect that goes along with it.  Or, we
become so hardened to humans because of all the abuse to pets we see at the
hands of humans.  But Tater-Tot was
different…

In 2008 I received a call from a
young girl about a cat she’d found while here on vacation with her family.  They were staying in the neighboring city of
Kissimmee at her aunt’s house and this orange tabby cat showed up, weak &
hungry.  Hannah made it her mission – on
her summer vacation – to help this kitty find a home.  Her call to me was to see if I’d take him
into Catnip Trails and get him off the street. 
Keep in mind that I receive hundreds of calls & emails like this
every month, and cannot take them all in. 
So, I told her that the right thing to do was to first see if he was
merely lost and try to locate his family. 
I created some flyers and had her post them in the neighborhood and drop
them off at their local vet.  I had
spoken to her mother who agreed to help and urged me to guide her daughter
through this process.  Hannah was about
10 years old. 

She spent the next week
interviewing her aunt’s neighbors and vets offices to see if she could find his
rightful owner, but sadly, no one who knew the cat she was calling Chester.  Throughout the week, she emailed me with
updates on her progress, letting me know all the steps she’d taken to find him
a home.  She was determined to not leave
Florida without this cat being safe.

The night before her family was
to go back north, she called me in despair. 
Her aunt would not continue caring for the cat and was going to turn it
loose once they left.  She was
heart-broken.   We realized we had an
opportunity to not only save a cat’s life, but to make a positive impression on
a young girl’s life.  If she left here
defeated at trying to help an animal in need, she’d possibly never try to help
again.  If she left here knowing all her
hard work paid off, maybe – just maybe – she’d be a rescuer one day. 

When I got there, Chester was in
a carrier on the back porch and Hannah was beaming from ear to ear.  Her mother took me aside and thanked me for
teaching Hannah the responsible way to help this cat, for making her “stick
with it”, and for showing her that hard-work pays off.   As I was loading Chester (soon to be
Tater-Tot) into my car, Hannah gave me the biggest, little-person hug ever,
with tears flowing down her face.  She
reached into her pockets and pulled out 3 one-dollar bills and a handful of change.  She told me it was what she and her sisters
had left over from their vacation money and she wanted to donate it to
Chester’s care.  Knowing I was about to
refuse the money, her mother put her hand on mine and said “I wish we could do
more – please take it.  You are the only
one who responded to Hannah’s plea for help.”

While Tater-Tot’s rescue had a
positive impact on a little girl’s life, it’s also had a huge impact on
mine.  “Toot” as he’s affectionately
called is the most awesome, loving, and special kitty we have.  And by special, I mean he’s my “Forest Gump”
of kitties.

One more story is of Red – a
senior golden retriever I found tied to a pole at the post office on a hot
Sunday afternoon.  I had just flown into
town and stopped to check my mail on the way home.  I didn’t see him on my way in, but coming
back out the door, there he sat, panting & frothing, parched from the
heat.  There was also a sheriff sitting
in his air-conditioned car in the parking lot. 

I walked up to the dog and he
wiggled and whined.  I checked his collar
for a tag – none.  The officer got out of
his car and asked if I was his owner which I declined.  He told me the dog had been there all day and
he had come back to wait for animal control who was called in to pick him
up.  I said “You know at his age, they’ll
just kill him.”  He nodded in
agreement.  I asked if he’d had any water
while he was there “all day”, and he replied that since animal control was
coming and we knew the inevitable, he saw no need to give him water. 

I unhooked his leash and led him
to my car.  The sheriff asked if I was
claiming the dog, to which I replied, “No, but I am taking him for a drink of
water.”  I put him in my car, drove home,
and never looked back.  Red River, as we
learned his name to be, was microchipped to a woman in NC.  Unfortunately, the contact information was
more than five years old and she never kept it up to date.  The phone number listed was no longer in
service and there was no forwarding number. 
Sleuth that I am, I took his picture and faxed it to every vet in my
county and to the county where she used to live in NC.  No one knew this dog.  I did a white pages search for her name and
called every listing – but no one claimed poor Red.  So, being that we live in one of the most
popular retirement areas of FL, I forged on to the obituaries, and there she
was.  She had died earlier in the week in
a neighboring city, and evidently her family decided they didn’t want her
dog.  I didn’t bother tracking them down,
and instead advertised him for adoption.

Red River, although a senior at
9 yrs old, adopted out very quickly to a wonderful family who still sends me
updates.  I’m so thankful that he’s now
being shown the love & respect he deserves. 
I’m sure it was very confusing for him to lose his mom, and then his
home, but dogs are so forgiving of us humans. 
They love unconditionally even after abandonment or abuse.  Red River is one of the lucky ones – he will
be cherished for the rest of his life!

            Joan, I’ve
said this so often to you and my friends in Echo Dogs, but I have so much
admiration for what people in rescue work do.  
I think most of us feel sympathy or sadness when we see a lost animal or
encounter a dog that is being neglected or abused.  How do you keep from utter despair when you
see so much suffering on a daily basis?  
Do you have any suggestions how the rest of us can help animals in
need?     

Unfortunately, Sharon there is
no magic potion to ward off the despair, and ultimate burn-out all rescuers
experience from time to time.  I feel it
in my heart, and sometimes it takes its toll on my health as well.  Stress is very powerful, yet that’s what we,
as rescuers all feel when we look at the hundreds of faces we know we can’t
help in time.  I sometimes feel like I’m
having a heart attack, but know it’s merely my heart breaking… once again.  But that’s not what it’s all about.  If we focused on the “RIP” albums (yes, there
are RIP albums to pay our respect to those we were unable to help), we’d never
be able to continue our work. 

It takes a great deal of strength
and courage to forge past those albums and onto creating the “Success Stories”
that keep us going.  And Tristan is a
prime example of one of my most triumphant rescues.  Not a week goes by that I don’t look at
pictures of him, Oliver, Riley, Baroness, Josie, Lucy, Ginger, Bear, Buddy,
Sugar & Spice, Peaches, Kodi & Gracie, Zorro, Muffin and hundreds more
that were saved because we force ourselves to continue – despite the
losses.  I can only hope that those whose
help didn’t come in time, did not expire in vain; that somehow, someone’s life
was touched enough to make a difference in the life of another pet.

Aside from opting to adopt,
there are so many ways people can help animals in need.  Fostering is probably the single, most-valued
service rescuers need.  Without foster
homes available, rescues cannot pull a pet without putting him/her in
boarding.  And saving one from death just
to have him/her sit in a kennel for months is not rescue.  Foster homes provide a temporary residence
while a permanent home is found.  They
further evaluate the pet’s behavior with humans and other pets, and provide
training when necessary.  Mostly, they
provide a loving environment for a pet to blossom in, and cash-in on lots of
sloppy kisses!  Most rescues (Catnip Trails
and Echo Dogs included) pay for all medical expenses while the pet is in
foster, so the only expense is usually food. 
Many people say they could never foster because it would be too hard to
let the pet go to a forever home.  I find
that curious, and although I too am a “failed foster” by adopting Willow, I’d
much rather see a pet leave me to go to a good home, than never have had a
chance in the first place. 

Other ways to help include:

• Always opt
  to adopt instead of shop for your next pet; and remember a pet is a
  lifetime commitment.  Almost 40% of
  the pets in shelters are pure-breds. 
  Not all shelter pets come with problems – many are there due to the
  unfortunate circumstances, or ignorance of their former families.




• Always have
  your pet spayed/neutered to stop reproduction.  Having just one litter increases your
  female pet’s chance of cancer.  Not
  having a male pet neutered increases his chance of cancer by an astounding
  90%.  And with over 4 million pets
  being put down every year in our country, over-population has become an
  epidemic.




• Ensure your
  pet always has a microchip or wears a tag.




• Volunteer
  your time at a local facility or no-kill shelter.  Most shelters won’t ask you to scoop
  poop or clean kennels – many just need dog walkers and people to play with
  the pets to further their social skills. 
  What’s more fun that playing with dogs & cats?  Others could use help posting animals in
  need, providing transports (usually 60 miles or less), or simple office
  work.




• Take your
  dog to obedience training.  He
  doesn’t understand the rules until you show him, and an abundance of dogs
  are surrendered for simple obedience issues that could have been avoided
  with just one obedience class.




• Never, ever
  offer pets as “free to good home”. 
  Ask for a donation, find a rescue, or use your local SPCA if you
  have no other choice in surrendering your pets.  Free to good home pets often meet a fate
  worse than death.




• Teachers:  Invite a Humane Education speaker into
  your classrooms.  If you’re in
  central FL, I’d be happy to speak at your school.




• Vote!  Support legislation that protects
  animals.




• If you find
  a lost pet, stop and pick it up. 
  Then contact a local rescue for resources on finding its rightful
  owner or a shelter to take it to. 
  Although shelter-life often has a bleak outcome, it certainly
  offers better odds than starvation, traffic, or worse.




• Teach your
  children the humane treatment of animals.




• Report
  abuse, chaining/tethering, and neglect to your local officials.




• Keep your
  donations local!  The Humane Society
  of the United States shares less than 1% of their donations with shelters
  that actually house animals.  Find a
  local chapter or a no-kill rescue – we are all over-extended with pets and
  vet bills, and short on funds. If you cannot afford to donate money, bring
  them an extra bag of pet food, towels, collars, leashes or pet toys. 




• If there’s a
  family in your neighborhood or social circle with pets and you know they
  are financially struggling, bring them an extra bag of pet food.  Help your community keep their pets in
  their homes and out of shelters. 
  Seniors are most often in need of a little extra help – and need
  their pets more than ever in their golden years.




• Become
  familiar with the “No-Kill
  Equation” and other shelter reform documents through the No Kill
  Advocacy Center.  Don’t be afraid to
  ask your county animal facilities if they follow such protocol, and help
  promote the No Kill vision when possible.




• Remember,
  you don’t have to adopt every pet to make a difference, just join the
  village and get involved on some level.

Joan, thank you so much for
agreeing to this interview.  You are an
amazing person and I feel proud to call you my friend.   Tristan is sleeping right now on his bed,
utterly relaxed with all four feet in the air, and you made this possible for
him—and for dogs and cats (and donkeys) beyond counting.   My readers interested in learning more about
Joan’s rescue, Catnip Trails, and Echo Dogs White German Shepherd Rescue can
visit their websites here.   http://www.catniptrails.com/       http://www.echodogs.org/

May 5, 2012

It was a year ago on March 6^th that I drove down to Maryland to meet Tristan, the elderly, frail white shepherd I was adopting from Echo Dogs White Shepherd Rescue.   He was named Hank then, and he hadn’t had a lot of luck in his life; the evidence suggests that he was an outdoor dog for he wasn’t housebroken or neutered and panicked the first time he was taken onto a surface that wasn’t grass; he also tried to walk through a glass door in his foster family’s house.    But his luck was about to change—win the lottery kind of change.  Joan Alexander took him from a high-kill Florida shelter on his last day.   She then found a good-hearted woman named Becky Dunne who agreed to foster him.   People who are willing to foster dogs perform an invaluable service; they literally save lives by opening their homes to dogs in need, dogs like Tristan who’d probably never even been in a house before.    The sad truth is that millions of dogs and cats are euthanized every year in US shelters.  The Humane Society estimates that six to eight million dogs and cats are turned into shelters each year; the ASPCA has the numbers at five to seven million.  Both organizations say that three to four million dogs and cats are put down every year.  If not for Joan Alexander and Echo Dogs, Tristan would have been one of them.

Tristan is my third rescue shepherd.  My first was Cody, adopted from the Gloucester County shelter in 2001.   This young, intelligent, energetic dog was chained up in a back yard 24-7, and then was dumped at the shelter by his owners because they complained they “could not control him.”    Cody was my once-in-a-lifetime dog; I wrote a blog about him titled Cody after his death in March, 2010.

A few months later, I adopted Shadow from the Burlington County Animal Alliance.  Shadow was a young white shepherd who’d been brutally beaten, kicked, starved.  He was terrified when he was brought into the shelter, but when one of the shelter workers went into his cage and sat down, he crawled over and put his head in her lap.  She took him home that same day and a few weeks later I found him on the wonderful site Petfinder.com.    I called Susan the next day and six days later, he was mine.   I’d never had a dog who’d been so abused, a dog who had so little reason to trust people.  But once he realized he was safe and loved, he blossomed.  Shadow had the sweetest nature of any dog I’ve ever known.  He was so happy for the first time in his young life; shepherds are usually aloof with strangers, but Shadow channeled his inner Golden Retriever and lavished love upon every one he met.   As many of you know, I only had nine months with Shadow, for in January of last year, his tragic past caught up with him and he became quite ill.  He was diagnosed with a diaphragmatic hernia, the result of blunt force trauma; two-thirds of his liver and spleen had migrated into his chest cavity.  The vets were optimistic that it could be repaired, but it was not to be, for he developed pulmonary edema just a week after the surgery.   He was the first young dog that I’d ever lost and it was very painful.  But at least he did have nine good months in a life of much misery, and there was some comfort in that.

I found it hard to bring another dog into my home after losing Shadow, and finally decided to adopt a dog that would be difficult to place, a dog not many people would want, and that led me to nine year old Hank, half-starved when he was found, with bald patches and wobbly hind legs.    A year later my frail senior shepherd has morphed into Godzilla!  He was sixty-four pounds when I adopted him; today he is a robust ninety-four pounds.  His skimpy, scarce coat is now so plush and thick that a polar bear might well envy it.  And he found the Fountain of Youth in the Jersey Pinelands, for my vet is convinced that the Florida vet over-estimated his age because of his poor physical condition and he was actually about seven, not nine.    So Tristan has thrived in his new life and I owe it all to Joan Alexander and Echo Dogs White Shepherd Rescue.   Since most of my readers and Facebook friends are my fellow animal-lovers, I thought you would be interested in learning more about rescue work and what motivates people like Joan, whom I call, only half-in-jest, Tristan’s Echo Angel.

Joan, welcome and thank you for agreeing to this interview.   Since my readers are familiar with Tristan’s rescue—many of them followed his pilgrimage up the East Coast to his new home last March—can you tell us how you happened to hear that there was a shepherd in dire need at the Orlando shelter and your first impression of “Hank.”

Hi Sharon, thank you for hosting me and bringing the subject of rescues to your readers.  Let me first give you a little background on how the “rescue network” operates.  As you probably know, the south is well-known for our pet over-population problem and the resulting abundance of high-kill animal facilities.  Pets are often saved and transported north where the epidemic doesn’t seem to be so prevalent.  In Florida, we have a dynamic network of rescue volunteers who spend countless hours scanning pets in need and posting them throughout the network and social media to increase their exposure, and ultimately save more lives.  One lady, Ellen Manning, takes on the task of compiling the “Animals in Need” list from every central Florida animal control facility and distributes the list to every No-kill shelter in the state (and beyond).  From that list (among others), we then get to work to network each pet and get as many as possible to safety, keeping in mind we often have less than 72 hours to locate a foster, arrange to “pull” the animal, then transport it out of the facility.

“Hank’s” plea came to me in the form of an email dated February 1, 2011 titled:  “Stunning white older GSD!  Fun-loving, beautiful, spunky.  Application fell off… SOS!” For the next 3 days, dozens of emails flew back & forth – was he good with cats?  Dogs?  What was his heartworm & other medical status?   Finding a foster who could take him in on short notice prompted another dozen-plus emails before we could officially commit to pulling him out of animal control.  Hank was at Orange County Animal Services (OCAS) in Orlando, FL.  Although their “save rate” is better than some, they too are a high-kill facility especially with older, less-adoptable dogs, and Hank’s “out date” (the date on which an animal can be put down) was February 4^th.  By the night of February 3^rd, we had located a foster, and committed to picking Hank up the next day in the mid-afternoon.

OCAS is a very busy facility with people coming and going pretty much constantly.  It took a long time to finally make it to a live person to complete Hank’s release papers, only to be questioned on why I would pull such a feeble old dog when there were “so many young, playful dogs” available.  I was told they’d be putting him down in about an hour anyway, so why not choose another, more adoptable dog.  I stood my ground and requested that they release Hank so we could be on our way to his foster mom Becky.

I was instructed to go to the back of the kennels as they didn’t want Hank coming through their office… Hmmm, what’s up with that?  I drove around back and they brought him out of his kennel and started walking towards me.  I don’t know how long it had been since he’d been out, but he stopped to relieve himself and did so for over 2 minutes!  He was such a sight – I’ll never forget thinking about that original email… Beautiful?  Stunning?  Spunky?  He was nothing of the sort.  I would have to describe my first impression of him as sad, defeated, broken, and lonely.  His hind quarters were covered in feces, matted into his tail and legs.  He was missing fur on his legs, tail, and back where he obviously had some sort of skin condition, and he stunk to high heaven.  He didn’t even attempt to get into my car – his head hung low, and he was far too weak to jump.  My friend Tarina and I (holding our noses) hoisted him into the back of my SUV and drove him out of there.

Knowing we couldn’t possibly deliver a dog to a foster in this condition, we took him straight to PetCo for a much needed spa experience!  I asked Tarina to walk him inside and find a crate large enough for him while I spoke to the groomers.  Tarina led him through the automatic doors and the moment his feet hit the linoleum floor, all four legs came out from under him and he lay sprawled on his belly and wouldn’t budge.  She carried him to the welcome mat, but he had the same reaction and refused to move.  He’d obviously never set foot on anything but grass or pavement before!  The groomers at Millennia PetCo were awesome and handled him with the utmost care & dignity.  I don’t know if Hank had ever been bathed, but he really seemed to enjoy the attention.

We hoisted him back into the car and headed for Becky’s – almost 2 hours late.  After being treated with respect and receiving a little affection, what I then saw in the back of my car was a beautiful, stunning, happy, and almost spunky boy – so thankful to be out of hell’s doors and on his way to safety.  Somehow, his expression said “Thank You” and he knew he’d just been saved.

How did you first become involved in rescue work?    In addition to your volunteer work with Echo Dogs, you have established your own rescue, Catnip Trails.    Could you tell us how that came about?

I’d have to say my first rescue was a grey cat named “Charkie” when I was 4 or 5 years old.  He wandered into our yard and my mom always teased me that my first words as a toddler were “Look what I found, can I keep him?”  My family was very altruistic, and it seemed we often had stray dogs & cats that my dad brought home from work.  My mother always found them good homes and they taught me respect & love for our furry-friends.

As an adult, I have simply carried on the way of life I was taught: Always help those in need.  When I met my husband Alan – also an animal lover – we started saving strays, but rarely adopted them out.  “Rescue” back in the early 90s wasn’t what it is today!  We didn’t have the internet or networking tools we have now to connect with so many people and gain so much exposure for pets in need.  We’d adopt out those we could, and the rest have lived out their lives with us.  In the beginning, it was hard to distinguish that fine line between helping & hoarding, and honestly it took a lot of soul searching to find the happy balance and respect our own limitations.    I think everyone in rescue goes through this and has equally a hard time finding their own balance.

By the mid-to-late 90s I’d become well connected in the rescue community, and decided it was time to spread the word to others.  I wanted to help mentor new rescues, bringing the younger generation to the table to teach them how to be successful at saving lives.  I wanted to bring humane education to our schools to help reduce abuse, over-population, and the general theme of ‘discarding’ pets.  And I wanted to share my resources with pet-owners who needed help, those looking to adopt a new pet, and sadly those faced with surrendering their pet.  So, we formed Catnip Trails in 1996 as a platform to build a name that the rescue community could trust.

In 2009, we adopted two beautiful white shepherd pups from Echo Dogs White Shepherd Rescue.  Shortly thereafter, an Echo Dogs officer approached me to volunteer for them as their FL Foster Coordinator.  Since the officers are all located in northern states, and there are so many white German Shepherds in need in the south, they knew they needed some help managing the incoming dogs – and foster families in Florida.  Echo Dogs is a reputable and responsible rescue group, and I’m honored to be working with such a fine team of rescue angels.

I’d like to know more about Catnip Trails’ operation.  Can you tell us what different kinds of help you provide and how that all comes about?

With a phone number of 439-PETS, I get all sorts of calls here.  Most of the time, people call with the notion that I can dispatch a driver to pick up the pet they need to “get rid of” – for one reason or another.  Little do they realize, I’m a “one-woman show” so to speak.  Sometimes those calls have happy endings whereby the pet owner just really needed some guidance, training, and support.  That was the case with a call from a young mother that went something like this:

Caller:  I have to find a new home or shelter for my cat – it just scratched my daughter!

Me:  Really?  I’m sorry your daughter was hurt, is she bleeding?  How old is she?

Caller:  No, but she’s very upset.  She’s 7 years old.

Me:   Were you in the room when she got scratched, or do you know what happened?

Caller:  No, I was in another room, but my daughter says she was just sitting on the couch and the cat came up and just reached out and scratched her for no reason.

Me:  Hmmm, cats don’t normally scratch unless they are provoked.  They are generally very content being independent or receiving affection, but they don’t like to be taunted.  Is there any possibility that just maybe your daughter provoked a scratch?

Caller:  Well, possibly…  She does tend to taunt the cat sometimes.

Me:  Do you have any other children?

Caller:  Yes, I also have a 10 year old son.

Me:  Have your son & daughter ever disagreed, played too rough, or had a fight where one of them ended up crying?

Caller:  Yes.

Me:  Did you ever consider “getting rid of” one of them because they had a fight?

Caller:  [Laughing and a little embarrassed] Oh, I see your point.

Me:  Ask your daughter to sit on the couch and gently bring the cat to her side.  Ask her to make up with the cat and see if the two of them can be nice to each other in your presence.  This is a golden opportunity for you to teach her how to resolve conflict.  Please call me back and let me know the outcome.

She called back to thank me for being so understanding and helping her realize that maybe her daughter was being just a little dramatic.  She then thanked me for helping her keep her cat.

While that story had a good outcome, the most difficult calls are from those people who have a real crisis and re-homing their pet is inevitable.  And in this economy those calls are on the rise.  With the extreme over-crowding in no-kill shelters, often times the only answer is a local SPCA or Humane Society with an open-admission policy.  But sadly, those facilities are usually not No-Kill and cannot guarantee their pet will be safe.  If the owner has enough time to let me help, I will then get to work on creating flyers and emailing them to every vet and pet related business in the area, and will heavily network their pet on social media.  The most successful advertising we use is posting flyers at local vet’s offices.  The people who go in their doors are usually already pet owners, and/or pet lovers and often contact their vets when they’re ready for another pet.  Because these people are usually in such despair, I always provide my services for free.

Other times, I deal with irresponsible people who just want to transfer their problem to someone else without trying to find a resolution and keep their pet out of a shelter.  They are generally the people that try to emotionally blackmail me into taking their pet with, “If you don’t take it I’m going to drop it at animal control.”  I don’t take kindly to being emotionally blackmailed, and sometimes my response is not as diplomatic as I’d like.  But regardless of the issue, I always try to offer advice or resources and talk them through it with the pet’s best interest in mind.

I often feel like I’m the Pets-411 line pointing people to the resources they need, from low-cost vet care, trainers, boarding facilities, and other pet related services to shelters that may be taking in pets.  Luckily, our vet’s office takes in kittens and adopts them out for us, so I often refer people there, then urge them to get the mom cat spayed.  I sometimes even pay for the spay surgery myself to stop the cycle, and ensure they don’t call me back in 6 months with another litter.

Sadly, the one thing I hear the most is, “Thank you for taking [or returning] my call.  You are the only one who responded to me and offered me advice after leaving messages at dozens of other places.”  It’s very frustrating that people in need can’t find the resources they’re looking for or at least get a call-back.  I understand rescues are overwhelmed, I get the frustration of dealing with uncaring and irresponsible people, and I feel the despair that comes with the “job”.  But I also know that a certain percentage of these callers/e-mailers just need advice that only comes from years of networking with local resources.  So, while my family gets frustrated at the number of calls I take, or hours I spend answering emails, I find solace knowing that my time today has probably saved at least one life.

The other facet of my work with Catnip Trails comes in the form of emails.  All rescuers receive the “Weekly Animals in Need” email I referred to earlier.  These are the emails with hundreds of faces behind bars hoping their plea will be heard and someone will be out there looking for a pet with their qualities.  These are the pets that have already ended up in animal control facilities that now have approximately 3-5 days to find a rescue angel to save them.  They know it, they smell it, and they are the most grateful when rescued.  It’s usually the moms & seniors that get to my heart first.  Seems there are several “puppy brokers” out there calling themselves rescues that will sweep in to save the puppies because they are the easiest to adopt.  But they often leave the moms behind to die.  And the seniors are almost always over-looked and passed by for a younger more active dog or cat.  Their fate is often sealed the moment they cross through the intake door at these facilities.

But, as the terms “Rescue”, “No Kill”, and “Adopt” become more prevalent and accepted in our society, I see more & more advocates stepping in to help however they can.  Some angels spend their time forwarding emails, posting them on social media and contacting breed-specific rescue groups.  Others offer free transport services, some provide foster services, yet others volunteer on the front lines – at the shelters – to ease the suffering of the pets inside.  I always say it takes a village to save a homeless pet and nothing could be closer to the truth.  It’s very sad that our society has deemed “homelessness” as an illness worthy of death.  So as a member of this rescue village, I do all I can – from posting, emailing, pulling, fostering, transporting and adopting, to offering free resources & referrals to save as many lives as I can while I’m on this earth.  Everyone who contributes their time, money, and/or energy to saving a life – is part of the solution, and part of my village.

I enjoyed this interview so much that I kept throwing questions at Joan and before we knew it, we were going for a world-record-length blog.   I couldn’t bring myself to cut any of it, so I decided to make two blogs out of it; that worked well with Lionheart and A King’s Ransom, after all.   So in the next installment, Joan will tell us about her adopted animals; not surprisingly, she has a full house.    She will also relate some of her more memorable rescues and offer suggestions for what the rest of us can do to help animals in need.   Meanwhile, you can visit her website at www.catniptrails.com and Echo Dogs White Shepherd Rescue’s website at www.echodogs.org to see their pets for adoption, to read interesting articles about animals, or to donate or volunteer or just to find out more about rescue work.     In the next blog, I’ll post photos of Joan’s furry family.  But it seemed a good way to end this one with a Before and After shot of Tristan, which really shows his dramatic transformation in just a matter of months.   And without Joan, it would never have happened.

April 19, 2012

On March 13, 1194, the real King Richard reached England after his involuntary stay in Germany.  My fictional Richard has just landed.  I am happy to report that Lionheart is now in British bookshops at long last.  It is also available as an e-book.   And it looks as if Richard is going to get bragging rights over Henry again, which, if I know my Angevins, is going to tick Henry off–royally, of course.   My British publisher tells me that Lionheart debuted as #21 on the UK hardback bestseller list—sorry, Henry.

This seems like a good time to discuss a book I mentioned in the Lionheart AN.  I recommended a number of books relating to the research I did for Lionheart, primarily chronicles.   I did list several biographies, too, among them Frank McLynn’s Richard and John, published in the UK under the more memorable title Lionheart and Lackland.    I explained that I had not read the second half of the book that deals with John’s reign, but I found Richard’s section to be historically accurate.   I should have been more specific, saying that I read the portions of the book that began with Richard’s coronation.  I had not read the earlier sections as they were not relevant for my research.   Well, recently I browsed some of these chapters and I was taken aback by the very negative views he takes of both Geoffrey and Henry.    I most definitely do not agree with his conclusions about either man.   I still say read the book if you are interested in the time period, just do not accept his “take” on Geoffrey and Henry as gospel.   We know that mine is the accurate depiction, after all.  🙂

In terms of research and historical accuracy, I think the definitive biographies of Henry and Richard remain the ones written by W. Warren and John Gillingham.     There is no definitive biography of Eleanor, but there are a number of them out there, more than for her husband—sorry again, Henry.    Ralph Turner’s biography is particularly good on his analysis of the scandal in Antioch.  I highly recommend Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, a series of essays about our favorite queen.   The biographies by Amy Kelly and Marion Meade are beautifully written, but their views on the Courts of Love must be discounted as they are very outdated.   For some reason, biographies do not seem to have proof readers, for I am sure many of the mistakes about names are just that, errors due to fatigue or a momentary mental lapse.  For example, McLynn tells us that William Marshal’s father was named Geoffrey, not John.   I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt there.  Same for Dr. Kessler’s excellent German biography of Coeur de Lion, Richard I. Lowenherz, when she misidentifies the brothers, Lord of Gorz, whom Richard encounters on his ill-fated journey home from the Holy Land.

But I’d be the last one to lambaste someone for fumbling a name after my latest mental lapse.  I was answering a Facebook reader’s question about the name of Richard’s illegitimate son, Philip, assuring her that he was not named after the French king, Philippe Capet.  I then pointed out that Richard’s own name was not a common one in either of his parents’ families.   So far, so good.  But then I had to mention his second son, Fulk, whose existence has not been confirmed, saying that was unusual, too.   Yikes.   As my friend Chuck kindly reminded me, Fulk is an Angevin staple.  How could I have forgotten Henry’s grandfather, the fifth Fulk of that name to rule Anjou, who went on to wed the Queen of Jerusalem.  Or the notorious Fulk Nerra, who’d probably give the Demon Countess of Anjou a run for her money.   I lost track of all the penitential pilgrimages he had to make to the Holy Land, but I remain haunted by the fate of his wife, who’d been reckless enough to take a lover.  Fulk had her burned at the stake in her wedding gown.    So I cast no stones for name mishaps.

It is more difficult to explain another historian’s faux pas; he tells us that when a teenage John invaded his brother Richard’s lands in Aquitaine, he was accompanied by his brother Geoffrey, the future Archbishop of York.    Definitely the wrong Geoffrey there, sir.   I was truly taken aback by David Boyle’s speculation that Richard I could have been a secret Templar.  And I remain infuriated with the French historian Jean Flori who labeled Henry a pedophile for his alleged affair with the unhappy Alys of France.   As I’ve said repeatedly, I have no problems whatsoever if someone concludes that there was indeed an affair, for these rumors were current during their lifetimes.    I was rather disappointed, in fact, when I concluded that these rumors were political slanders put about by Henry’s multitude of foes and given some credence by his history of womanizing.   Writers crave drama the way my dogs crave liver, and what could be more dramatic than a man seducing his own son’s betrothed?    What wonderful scenes I could have written…sigh.   But no one suggested any liaison between Henry and Alys before Rosamund Clifford’s death, when Alys was in her 17^th year.   Now today an older man and a seventeen year old girl would likely stir up some disapproval, but this was the 12^th century, Monsieur Flori.   By his standards, Llywelyn Fawr would be a pedophile for wedding Joanna at age fourteen.  Now John did raise some eyebrows by bedding his twelve year old bride, Isabelle a’Angouleme, but that is another story for another time.

Okay, end of rant.   I should alert my British readers that the Lionheart Author’s Note is lengthy even by my self-indulgent standards—11 pages.   The novel itself weighs in at a brisk 600 pages.   I thought it might be fun to include physical descriptions  of my Angevins.   Here is a contemporary account of Richard’s appearance.  “He was tall, of elegant build; the color of his hair was between red and gold; his limbs were supple and straight. He had long arms suited to wielding a sword. His long legs matched the rest of his body.”
From the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi by Richard de Templo.”

Here is one of Henry, his sire.  “He was a little over medium height, a man blessed with sound limbs and a handsome countenance, one upon whom men gazed a thousand times, yet took occassion to return. In physical capacity he was second to none, capable of any activity which another could perform, lacking no courtesy, well read to a degree both seemly and profitable, having a knowledge of all tongues spoken from the coasts of France to the river Jordan, but making use of only Latin and French.”
From De Nugis of Walter Map.

And here is a wonderfully detailed one of Henry by Peter of Blois.    “The lord king has been red-haired so far, except that the coming of old age and gray hair has altered that color somewhat. His height is medium, so that neither does he appear great among the small, nor yet does he seem small among the great. His head is spherical…his eyes are full, guileless, and dove-like when he is at peace, gleaming like fire when his temper is aroused, and in bursts of passion they flash like lightning. As to his hair he is in no danger of baldness, but his head has been closely shaved. He has a broad, square, lion-like face. Curved legs, a horseman’s shins, broad chest, and a boxer’s arms all announce him as a man strong, agile and bold… he never sits, unless riding a horse or eating… In a single day, if necessary, he can run through four or five day-marches and, thus foiling the plots of his enemies, frequently mocks their plots with surprise sudden arrivals…Always are in his hands bow, sword, spear and arrow, unless he be in council or in books.”
From the Epistolae of Peter of Blois (1070-1117)

Here is one of Geoffrey and John.    John, King of England, son of Henry II (1166-1216)
Geoffrey and John both “were of rather short stature, a little below the middle height, and for their size were well-shaped enough.”
From The Topography of Ireland by Gerald of Wales    John’s body was exhumed in 1797 and measured at five feet, six inches and half, as related by Valentine Green in The Gentleman’s Magazine, 67, pt 2, 1797.

Notice who is missing?   Yes, while they praised her great beauty, not a single medieval chronicler thought to mention the color of Eleanor’s hair or eyes.  That did not stop Frank McLynn, though, from telling us she had black hair and eyes and a voluptuous figure.  I don’t mean to pick on him, but he has strayed into the province of the historical novelist here. I can do that; so can Elizabeth Chadwick.  As novelists, we have to be able to paint a word picture for our readers.  But writers of non-fiction need to throw in a “I think” or “it is likely” before presenting their readers with such a detailed description.

However, thanks to a Saracen chronicler who actually sounds rather smitten, we do have this poetic image of Isabella, Queen of Jerusalem, an important character in Lionheart.    Isabella of Jerusalem “One of the daughters of heaven; her face, shining white, appeared like the morning in the night of her very black hair.”
From the Conqu阾e de la Syrie et de la Palestine par Saladin of Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani

And here is Richard’s nemesis, Heinrich von Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor.  Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, son of Frederick Barbarossa and Beatrix of Burgundy, father of Frederick II (1165-1197)
“[His] face was pleasant but very thin, and he was only moderately tall with a slight and frail physique.”
From Burchard of Ursperg.

And while Heinrich’s son does not appear in Lionheart, his birth is dramatized in my first ever short story, so here are two remarkably contrasting views of this extraordinary man.   Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and king of Sicily, son of the Emperor Henry VI and Constance of Sicily, grandson of Frederick Barbarossa and Roger II of Sicily (1194-1250)
“The Emperor was covered with red hair, was bald and myopic. Had he been a slave, he would not have fetched 200 dirhams at market.”
From the Muntazam by Sibt Ibn al-Jawzi

“He could read, write, sing, and compose music and songs. He was a handsome man, well-built but of medium stature.” From the Cronica of Salimbene.

Most of the time, historical novelists have to rely upon happenstance to get a contemporary description of the people we write about.   One of my favorites comes from the chronicler who explained that when Llywelyn Fawr’s son Gruffydd attempted to escape from the Tower of London, the knotted sheets broke, plunging him to his death, because he was such a large man and had grown corpulent in captivity.   In the final analysis, though, we can only image what these historical figures actually looked like….unless they have effigies that the gifted Jude  Maris can resurrect for us.    If you have not seen her work on YouTube, you’re in for a treat.    Here is the link.   Click onto it and you will watch as Eleanor and her favorite son Richard come to life like Sleeping Beauty.   Say what you will about the Angevins, they were a very good-looking family.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvCodhi9nXU&list=UUTy1lP38Za7MgbfWsJ-2u-A&index=7&feature=plcp And   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVOFwLfchWA

For my readers who’ve already read Lionheart, thanks for indulging me in this.  For my British readers, I hope you find the Richard of Lionheart to be as surprising as I did.

March 28, 2012

This is a rather late entry about our Eleanor tour in June.  This one deals with our visit to the place where we’d be most likely to find Eleanor’s spirit — the abbey where she passed her last years, where she chose to be buried, next to her beloved son, Richard, and her beloved enemy, Henry.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE TOUR—NIGHT FOUR, TOUR OF FONTEVRAULT ABBEY

Fontevrault Abbey is unique, founded in 1101 by Robert d’Arbrissel, who was an anomaly in the 12^th century, for he was “committed to a new and exalted conception of the status of women;” see “Fontevraud, Dynasticism, and Eleanor of Aquitaine,” by Charles T. Wood, in my favorite book about our favorite duchess, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady. Fontevrault was a double monastery for both monks and nuns, and the monks were subordinated to the nuns in temporal and spiritual matters, ruled by an abbess, who was preferably a widow, not a virgin; Robert d’Arbrissel believed that his abbey could best be managed by a Martha, not a Mary. He was a very interesting figure in his own right and I think one day I’ll have to devote a blog to his unusual history.

Fontevrault encompassed four monasteries. The monks dwelled outside the walls, in St-Jean de l’Habit, the women in the other three convents. The Grand Moutier was only for virgins; the other nunneries were Sainte Benedict and the Magdelene, the latter reserved for “repentant girls” and married women, widows or not, who wanted to retire from the world. Our current hotel was the priory of St Lazarus, in which the lepers were treated. The abbess, elected for life, was always chosen from among the most noble of the nuns. There would be 36 abbesses in the years from 1101 to 1792, 14 of them of royal blood. Among them were Henry II’s aunt and first cousin; his aunt Mathilde was the widow of Henry I’s sole legitimate son, who’d gone down on the White Ship.  Eleanor’s granddaughter Alix was an abbess, too, daughter and namesake of Eleanor’s younger daughter by the French king Louis. Fontevrault was also home to some very interesting highborn ladies, including both wives of Eleanor’s grandfather, Duke William IX.

Even the notorious Bertrade de Montfort took vows at Fontevrault. The wife of Count Fulk IV of Anjou, she’d created a huge scandal by running off with the French king Philippe I, aptly known as Philippe the Amorous, grandfather of Eleanor’s ex, Louis. Philippe and Bertrade were wed, a bigamous marriage since they both had spouses, but they showed little contrition. After the Pope excommunicated the guilty lovers, Bertrade had a church door broken open when she was denied entry and forced the priest to perform Mass for her. The French king and Bertrade lived openly in sin for 16 years, once even entertaining her cuckolded husband. Fulk himself had a rather chequered marital history, wed a number of times, shedding unwanted wives like a snake shedding its skin. A chronicler said of Bertrade that no man ever praised her save for her beauty, and she seems to have exercised her charms upon Robert d’Arbrissel, for in 1114, she persuaded him to allow her to take vows at Fontevrault. A year later, she left Fontevrault to become the prioress of Our Lady of Haute Bruyere near Paris and died c. 1118, thus managing to have her cake and eat it, too, dying in God’s Grace after a life of breaking all the rules with defiant abandon. She was our Henry’s great-grandmother.

Fonvrault continued to thrive through the MA and beyond; from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, the abbesses were all members of the Bourbon dynasty.  King Louis XV (“after me, the deluge.”) sent four of his daughters to Fontevrault to be educated in 1738. But the French Revolution brought almost seven hundred years of history to an abrupt end; in August of 1792, an edict would evict the nuns. Fontevrault suffered the fate of many French churches; in 1793, the abbey was sacked, the tombs broken into, and many of the statues destroyed. But like Mont St Michel, Fontevrault would be saved by being converted into a prison by Napoleon Bonaparte. It would be used as one until 1962, and among its inmates was the controversial French writer, Jean Genet. The following year it was declared a historical monument and excavation and restoration began. Today Fontevrault is a tourist attraction with its beautiful buildings of a bygone age and the royal necropolis of the Angevin dynasty.

For us, the most interesting aspect of Fontevrault is the four gisants, the effigies of Henry II, his queen, Eleanor, their son Richard, and John’s queen, Isabelle d’Angouleme. Richard’s sister Joanna was also buried at Fontevrault, as was her son Raymond, the seventh Count of Toulouse, but sadly, their tombs have been destroyed. The hearts of John and his son Henry III are said to have been sent to Fontevrault for burial, too. The British government made several attempts to have the effigies transferred to Westminster Abbey, and in 1866, Napoleon III actually offered them to Queen Victoria, but he was forced to renege when the French protested. It is believed that they were originally located in the nuns’ choir, and were commissioned by Eleanor after Richard’s death at Chalus in April of 1999. The effigies of Henry and Richard were done by the same artist, Eleanor’s effigy done a few years later. They were among the  first fully sculpted, life-sized effigies of monarchs, and even in their damaged state, are remarkable works of art. There is one major difference between the gisants. Those of Henry and Richard depict them in death, laid out in their coronation regalia. Eleanor’s image shows her alive, reading a book, with what might be the hint of an enigmatic smile. Isabelle seems like the party crasher, and indeed she was, for when she died in 1246, three years after taking refuge at Fontevrault in the wake of an unsuccessful rebellion against the French king, she was buried modestly in the sale capitulaire, the burial place for the nuns. When her son, Henry III, visited the abbey in 1256, he was distressed that his mother lacked a royal tomb and commissioned a wooden effigy, requesting that she be moved into the church with his illustrious kin.

While today Fontevrault is associated with Eleanor, it was Henry who was the abbey’s most generous patron. He exempted Fontevrault from royal taxes, founded a sister house in England  as penance for the part he’d played in the murder of Thomas Becket, supported the lazar house, entrusted the nuns with the education of his children, Joanna and John, and bequeathed 2,000 silver marks to the abbey in his will. But despite the favor he’d shown Fontevrault, it was not his wish to be buried there; he’d made clear his desire to be buried at Grandmont in the diocese of Limoges. Circumstances dictated his interment at Fontevrault, for he died at Chinon in the heat of high summer and William Marshal decided it was easier to transport his body to Fontevrault.

But if Henry’s burial at the abbey was accidental, with the others it was quite deliberate.  Richard’s dying wish was that he be buried at Fontevrault, at the feet of his father; an act of contrition, perhaps? Joanna took the veil upon her deathbed, and she, too, requested burial at the abbey. Eleanor assumed this heartbreaking task, for what could be more painful for a mother than to bury her own children? In this, Eleanor was truly accursed, for she would outlive all but two of her ten children. In 1199, she pledged one hundred pounds yearly to the nuns that they might observe in perpetuity the anniversary of her death and pray for the souls of her husband Henry, her sons Hal and Richard, and her other children. Until now, she’d not favored Fontevrault as Henry had. Her first recorded gift to the abbey was not made until 1185, when she enjoyed a brief period of greater freedom. She was clearly thinking dynastically, though, and chose Fontevrault to be the Angevins’ St Denis, the necropolis of the French kings. She would spend most of her remaining years after Richard’s death at Fontevrault and, like Joanna, she would take holy vows on her deathbed. This was fashionable in the 13^th century; Llywelyn Fawr and his son Davydd also took holy vows on their deathbeds, as did William Marshal. Had John not lost Normandy and Anjou to the French king, Fontevrault may have been the burial place of English royalty, not Westminster Abbey.

I had been looking forward to our night tour of the abbey, for I’d never experienced one, always having visited Fontevrault in the off-season. I have to confess that I did not enjoy it, mainly because my back pain had flared up again. I’d also had a vision of Fontevrault bathed in silvery moonlight and it was raining. And much to my surprise, our tour guide was not very good. Her knowledge of Eleanor and the Angevins seemed superficial and, accustomed to tourists who knew even less than she did, she had no idea that she would be swimming with sharks, very polite sharks but sharks, nonetheless. We did not suffer fools gladly, not where our Eleanor and Henry were concerned, and she was gently corrected when she erred, such as when she informed us that William the Conqueror was Henry’s grandfather. I was also surprised that a floor plaque declared that Eleanor had died at Poitiers. Now it is true that there is some disagreement as to whether she died at Poitiers or Fontevrault, but I’d assumed Fontevrault’s claim would have prevailed here, of all places. We were amused to find an error in the plaque’s recounting of her history. In French, it was correctly reported that she was held prisoner by Henry for sixteen years, but the English translation reduced her long captivity to two weeks!

Despite my disappointment with such minor matters as the weather and our guide, it is impossible to enter the abbey church and not be moved at the sight of those effigies. The church itself is very beautiful, aglow with blinding white light during the day, utterly unlike the shadowy stillness to be found in most medieval churches and cathedrals. It is a memorable and fitting resting place for our Angevins, Henry and Eleanor resting side by side, enjoying for eternity the peace that so often eluded them in life.

March 22, 2012

It has been a while since I’ve had a new blog, but my Facebook friends know there were extenuating circumstances; my hip went out of alignment so far that my chiropractor had to launch a search and rescue mission to find it and my computer woes escalated to the point where I was ready to perform an exorcism upon Demon Spawn and his evil accomplices, my printers.  I am happy to report, though, that my chiropractor has been able to work his usual magic; if this man ever decides to move, I’ll just have to follow him, even if he relocates to the Falkland Islands or the arctic tundra.  And Demon Spawn finally over-reached himself, discovering that he could be replaced—in this case by a laptop as sleek and speedy as a dolphin, Melusine, named after the Demon Countess of Anjou, one of Henry II’s more interesting ancestors.  So now that life has gotten back to normal—or as normal as it ever gets for a writer—I can stop neglecting my blog.

A world without books is a frightening prospect to most of us.  But despite the gloom and doom pervading the publishing industry, I don’t think this dire prediction will ever come to pass.  Yes, there are people, probably millions of them, who go from year to year without even picking up a book, much less reading one.  That is certainly understandable when life is a daily struggle for survival, and it is a sad fact that in many parts of our world, illiteracy is the norm.  But what of those who have the opportunity to read and choose not to take advantage of it?  I confess I do not understand a choice like that, for to me, books are as essential as air to breathe, or almost so.  Books open so many doors for us.  They teach us about history and empathy and our common humanity.  They give us a blessed refuge from reality when our lives become too pain-filled or too hectic or too stressful.  They strengthen our friendships; what book lover has not wanted to share books with friends?   They offer entertainment and a way to exercise our imaginations.   They make us think.  And they help us to understand our own world and the world that has been obscured by the mists of time.   One of my favorite quotations is the following insightful observation by William Faulkner:   “The past is not dead.  It is not even past.”    But of course that would resonate with me, wouldn’t it?   I am lucky enough to be a historical novelist, after all.

Last year I was given a signal honor.  The National Public Radio asked me to choose the Five Best Historical Novels of 2011 and then to write about them.  I was delighted to have such an opportunity, although it was a challenge to narrow the field down to five.  I finally selected: Elizabeth I by Margaret George, Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell, and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.  But there were other historical novels I’d read and enjoyed last year, even some that were not historical.  So….being fortunate enough to have a forum, I would like to mention some of these other books, all of which I recommend with enthusiasm.

One was a first novel, a remarkable debut by Priya Parmar, Exit the Actress.   This is a well-researched and well written novel about the most celebrated of the mistresses of King Charles II—the very appealing actress Nell Gwyn.  I confess to harboring a fondness for Charles, who seems to have had a good heart as well as an overly-active libido, more charm than the law should allow, and a sardonic sense of humor.  So I was a natural audience for Exit the Actress, perhaps predisposed to like this book.  But I think Priya did justice to Charles and Nell and the other colorful characters who inhabit her re-creation of Restoration England.  I thought this book was a delight, from first page to the last.

Another book I enjoyed last year was Elizabeth Chadwick’s Lady of the English.  As many of you know, I do not normally read other authors’ novels about the historical figures closest to my heart.  A perfect example—I have great respect for Edith Pargeter, the British author.  I think her A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury is brilliant, and I was a great fan of the mystery series she wrote under the name Ellis Peters.  But I have not read her novels about the Welsh princes, known as The Brothers of Gwynedd quartet, for I am too emotionally invested in Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Ellen de Montfort, and Davydd ap Gruffydd.  In the same way, I do not read other novels about Richard III, Henry II, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.  I made an exception, though, for Lady of the English.  Yes, it covers some of the same events that I dramatized in When Christ and His Saints Slept, but our approaches were different and I think that the two books complement each other rather than compete with each other.  It was very interesting for me to see Elizabeth’s depiction of characters I’d written about, although in almost every case, we were on the same page.  My portrayal of Stephen’s queen, Matilda, is probably more sympathetic than hers, but since the readers see Matilda only through the eyes of the empress, that makes perfect sense; she had no reason to think kindly of the usurper Stephen or his capable consort, after all.   A slight digression here as to the names, for I get asked this quite often and I am sure Elizabeth does, too.   Maude and Matilda are the same name; Maude is the vernacular, the French version, and Matilda is the Latinized form of the name.  She would have called herself Maude, but she appeared in legal documents and the Latin chronicles as Matilda.  Since she shared the name with Stephen’s queen, I chose to call her Maude and use Matilda for Stephen’s wife.    But whatever she is called, you will want to read about Elizabeth’s empress and her friend and stepmother, Adeliza, her father’s young widow, who share star billing in Lady of the Engllish.

My next recommendation is a slight departure in that it is not a historical novel.  But it is sure to interest anyone who has read The Sunne in Splendour, for Joan Szechtman has done something remarkable, something I could not do—she managed to give Richard III a happy ending.  She does this by transporting Richard from the battle at Bosworth Field just before he dies and bringing him to our time.  The novel is called This Time and is a clever, imaginative depiction of how it would be for a medieval man to find himself in a world foreign to him in every aspect.  Talk about culture shock!   And for those who read This Time and enjoy Richard’s foray into the twenty-first century, I have good news.  Joan has written a sequel, Loyalty Binds Me.  My killer deadline for A King’s Ransom has kept me from reading it yet, but I have no doubt that it will be as entertaining as This Time.

Other books that I read in the past year that I enjoyed include The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner and his mystery, The Tudor Secret.  Catherine de Medici is one of history’s more controversial queens, but she emerges as a believable flesh-and-blood woman in Christopher’s novel and his research revealed some surprising things about her; who would have guessed that she was so far ahead of her time in her concern for animals?  And his depiction of the infamous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre is riveting.  As an added bonus, he gives us one of my favorite French kings, Henri IV of Navarre, who realistically if cynically disavowed his Protestant faith to gain a crown, saying “Paris is worth a Mass.”

In previous blogs, I’ve praised Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon series, which I devoured after I was drawn in by Death of Kings, and George R.R. Martin’s Ice and Fire series, which captivated me after I watched HBO’s  Game of Thrones.  Margaret Frazer had a new mystery, A Play of Heresy, published in December, starring her clever, laid-back, and charming player-spy, Joliffe.   In an earlier blog, Hide Your Wallets and Checkbooks, I praised Priscilla Royal’s excellent medieval mystery series set in 13^th century England; her eighth book, A Killing Season, had just come out and I wanted to share my impressions with my readers.  I want to mention her novels again for the benefit of those who did not read my earlier blog.  And for a change of pace that takes us away from the past into the present, I am a huge fan of Dana Stabenow’s Kate Shugak Alaskan mysteries and cannot recommend them highly enough.  Her latest, Restless in the Grave, is fun to read from the first page to the last, and often had laugh-out-loud moments, which aren’t always found in mysteries.

Well, now that I have—I hope—added to your TBR piles of books, it is only fair that you get to make recommendations of your own.  So I’d love to hear your views of books you’ve read recently and why you enjoyed them.  I’m sure I am forgetting several that I also liked this past year, but I have a stack of research books about medieval Germany on the floor and I’ve noticed that Holly, my little spaniel, has been eying them with too much interest.  She is usually good about confining her chewing to her own toys, but she does seem to think that anything left on the floor is fair game, so this is probably a good time to wrap this up.  I will be waiting with interest to see which books you all recommend.  We already know you guys have great taste in novels, for you like mine!

February 26, 2012

For years, friends told me I must read George R.R. Martin’s Ice and Fire series, which is loosely based upon a subject close to my heart, the Wars of the Roses.  I trusted my friends’ judgment, but I have never been drawn to fantasy; more to the point, I already had a TBR pile that rivaled the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  If I hadn’t already had bumper stickers on my car for the University of Texas, the Philadelphia Eagles, Wales, and German shepherds, I’d have added one that said, “So many books, so little time.”

But then HBO launched its series, Game of Thrones, and I knew I had to watch it, for it starred Sean Bean, and I’d follow him anywhere.  Well, I was hooked from the first episode.  So naturally then I had to read the books, for it has been my experience that no matter how good a film is, the book is always better.  Real life then screeched to a halt as I caught up with George Martin’s millions of devoted readers.  It is an amazing series, one I highly recommend.  Yes, it is technically fantasy, but it is rooted in a gritty, medieval reality and that makes all the difference.  Also, I love the dragons and the dyrewolves.

It is fun trying to match Martin’s characters with the people who may or may not be their real-life counterparts.  A few seem easy.  Robert Baratheon is clearly Edward IV.  Queen Cersei has to be Elizabeth Woodville, and Joffrey Baratheon is an unkind version of the uncrowned Edward V.   And I think Ned Stark is Richard III, although some of my friends disagree with me on this one.   After that, all bets are off.  Is Jon Snow meant to be Henry Tudor?   (I hope not, for I really like Jon!)   The dragon queen, Daenerys?   Does she represent the deposed House of Lancaster?    Or is she Elizabeth of York?  Only George Martin knows.  Then, too, the Wars of the Roses was the launching pad for the series, but he is lucky enough to control the destinies of his people and so he can send them down any road he chooses.  Do I ever envy him that freedom!  I’d have let Richard III win the battle at Bosworth Field, and sent Henry Tudor off to the Mediterranean as a galley slave.

One caution for new readers.  He believes in Tough Love.  He literally has a cast of thousands, with five books done in a projected seven book series, each one heavy enough to serve as a door stop in a pinch.  And when a character reappears after a long absence, he does not offer any clues or hints to jog a reader’s memory.  It’s sink or swim!   Thank-fully, he does provide a detailed genealogy for each House of the Seven Kingdoms.   And the sweep of the story line is so powerful that it carries the readers along like twigs in a flood-tide, too caught up in the action to fret because they can’t quite remember which one of the despicable Freys has just surfaced.

Why do I like this series so much?   I think it is because he has created such three-dimensional, nuanced, memorable characters.  We care about their fates, want the ones we like to prevail and want the evil ones to pay for their often unforgivable sins.  My own favorite is Cersei’s brother Tyrion, AKA the Imp, brilliantly portrayed by Peter Dinklage in the HBO series, winner of a Golden Globe for his riveting performance.  After Tyrion, I guess I’d choose Jon Snow and Daenerys.   So….my fellow Martin addicts, name your own favorites!

There was one great advantage in coming so late to the party.  The fifth book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in July, after an agonizing six year wait for Martin’s fans….six years!   But party crashers like me only had to wait a few months.  Now, of course, the countdown begins for Book Six., The Winds of Winter.  To read an excerpt, click here.  http://georgerrmartin.com/if-sample.html

I had a similar experience later in the year, finding a treasure trove long after others had discovered its riches.   When the National Public Radio asked me to write about the Five Best Historical Novels of 2011, one of the books I selected was Bernard Cornwell’s new one, Death of Kings.  I am a great fan of his writing; I loved Agincourt and his Sharpe series, set during the Peninsular Wars between Napoleon and the English.  I don’t think there is another writer on the planet who can match Cornwell’s battle scenes, and I have a bit of experience myself in that area, the Middle Ages not being fertile ground for pacifists.  But I defer to the master here; whether he is describing a battle in 19^th century Spain, one in 15^th century France, or 9^th century England, he will have readers smelling the gun smoke, hearing the twang of arrows and the clash of swords.  They’ll be half expecting to see blood seeping onto the page!

A possible problem with Death of Kings was that I had not read the first five books in Cornwell’s Saxon Series, and in order to choose it for the NPR assignment, I had to be sure that it could be read as a stand-alone novel.   Since I was not familiar with the earlier books, I was the ideal guinea pig, and within half a dozen pages, I could e-mail the people at NPR and assure them that Death of Kings was a perfect choice.  I then plunged happily back into the novel, marveling all the while how I had somehow missed these books.  After I’d finished Death of Kings and written about it for NPR, I ordered the five earlier books in the series, and once again real life came to a screeching halt while I followed the adventures of Uthred, the Saxon youth captured by the Danes, which would make him a man able to move easily between the two worlds but never fully at home in either one.  I’d never done much reading about this period in English history, so it was fascinating and surprising to discover how close the Danes came to winning their war with Alfred, the only English king to be called The Great.   Think how different British history would have been if Alfred had not prevailed.  Maybe we’d be speaking Danish today!   Of course that would also mean no Plantagenets, and without Richard III to write about, I’d probably have been doomed to keep practicing law.  So, thank you, Alfred; I owe you one.

I found Uthred to be a wonderful character: bold, courageous, clever, sardonic, stubborn, with just enough dark corners in his soul to be truly interesting.  It was fascinating to see Christianity in its early stages, viewed through the cynical eyes of Uthred, who’d been raised as a Dane and taught to worship their gods.   He is easily my favorite of the characters given life by Bernard Cornwell, and that even includes Richard Sharpe.   The Saxon series also features some very strong women, not always present in earlier Cornwell books, and the secondary characters are born scene-stealers, while the action is adrenalin-fueled, and he outdoes himself in Uthred’s battles, which are his best ever– high praise, indeed.

Just as I felt the need to alert readers about George Martin’s cast of thousands, there is something I think I should mention for those readers unfamiliar with Cornwell’s Saxon series.  He is a very honest writer.  In other words, he anchors his people firmly in 9^th century England.  They are very much men and women of that distant age, and they often do things that will jar modern sensibilities.   Some writers try to soften the hard edges of historical reality; you can find novels in which southern slave owners are secret abolitionists at heart and medieval women are all feminists and religious tolerance flourishes at a time when people of all faiths were utterly convinced theirs was the one true god.    That is not the road you’ll travel in a Bernard Cornwell novel.  Readers will not like the way Alfred’s daughter is treated by the men in her life.  They may not like entering a world in which human life is held so cheaply.  I know some of them will hate what happens to Ragnar’s stallion and Uthred’s dog.  And others might not like Uthred’s caustic opinions about priests and the new religion of the Christians.   He is a pagan, proudly so, even though he realizes that the ancient Danish gods are not going to win this war.     So a reader must be willing to accept Uthred on his own terms, willing not to judge the past by the standards of our present.

Just as with the Ice and Fire series, I was fortunate in coming late to Cornwell’s party.   Others had to wait between books.  I had the luxury of finishing one novel and then picking up the next one.  For a reader, it does not get much better than that.   Now I can only hope that both men are living like monks, chained to their computers, doing nothing but work on the next volumes.

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends, I recently came upon a very interesting interview of Bernard Cornwell by George R. R. Martin.  Not surprisingly, they are fans of each other’s work.   I can’t think of a better way to end this blog, therefore, than to provide the link to their interview.    http://www.georgerrmartin.com/news.html

January 20, 2012