This
week, we're pleased to welcome author and Unusual Historicals contributor Kim Rendfeld with her newest release THE ASHES OF HEAVEN’S PILLAR. One lucky blog
visitor will receive an ebook. Be sure to leave your email address in the
comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are
contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.
Can
love triumph over war?
772
AD: Charlemagne’s battles in Saxony have left Leova with nothing but her two
children, Deorlaf and Sunwynn. Her beloved husband died in combat. Her faith
lies shattered in the ashes of the Irminsul, the Pillar of Heaven. The
relatives obligated to defend her and her family instead sell them into
slavery.
In
Francia, Leova is resolved to protect her son and daughter, even if it means
sacrificing her own honor. Her determination only grows stronger as Sunwynn
blossoms into a beautiful young woman attracting the lust of a cruel master and
Deorlaf becomes a headstrong man willing to brave starvation and demons to free
his family. Yet Leova’s most difficult dilemma comes in the form of a Frankish
friend, Hugh. He saves Deorlaf from a fanatical Saxon and is Sunwynn’s champion
- but he is the warrior who slew Leova’s husband.
Set
against a backdrop of historic events, including the destruction of the
Irminsul, The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar
explores faith, friendship, and justice. This companion to Kim Rendfeld’s
acclaimed The Cross and the Dragon
tells the story of an ordinary family in extraordinary circumstances.
**Q&A with Kim Rendfeld, author of The Ashes of Heaven’s
Pillar**
Your first book, The Cross and the
Dragon, was also set in eighth century
Europe. Why write in this time period again?
After
I finished writing The Cross and the
Dragon (2012, Fireship Press), a tale of love amid wars and blood feuds, I
went through an odd form of grief. I missed my characters, and the only way to
deal with that feeling of loss was to write another book. I chose this era again
because it fascinates me. It’s a society where the king’s decision on whom to
wed can mean the difference between peace and war, where medicine, magic, and
religion intersect, and where real-life gutsy women tried to shape the events
around them. I simply couldn’t fit them all in one book.
In
particular, two pieces of information rattled in my mind:
·
In
772, Frankish King Charles destroyed the Irminsul, a pillar holy to the pagan
Saxon peoples.
·
Slavery
was alive and well in this era, and war captives often ended up in servitude.
I
wondered what it would be like to have your faith literally go up in smoke and what
it would be like to be a freewoman one moment and a slave the next.
Why did you make a
pagan, peasant woman your heroine?
At
first, I was going to feature a couple of nuns I met in The Cross and the Dragon, but I couldn’t quite get a plot together,
and the Saxon family with their back story of loss and betrayal captivated me.
I surrendered to them and made that back story the main story.
My
interest in featuring a common woman also stems from spending almost two
decades in Indiana newsrooms. When I was a journalist, I believed one of my
duties was to give a voice to people who did not have a lot of influence
otherwise, and that instinct has followed me as I write historical fiction.
Early
medieval sources, written when few people could read and even fewer could
write, mainly concern themselves with the wars (of which there were many), affairs
of royalty, and the lives of saints. They are not objective accounts – there
simply was no such thing. To them, pagans are oath-breakers and brutes, and
captives, if mentioned at all, are spoils of war. So medieval peasants and
slaves rarely have a voice in history. With the pagan Continental Saxons, it
gets even more complicated. They had no written language as we know it.
Fiction
is one avenue to show what their lives might have been like.
What was the most
surprising or fun fact you found in your research for this book?
Cabbage
was not the same 1,200 years ago - it did not form heads. When I started
writing fiction, I knew not to include New World foods such as potatoes,
tomatoes, and peppers, but I took for granted that vegetables stayed the same
over the centuries. Was I wrong on that! I was surprised to learn that heading
cabbages are not mentioned until the 13th century. If you are researching food
history, check out foodtimeline.org.
Many of the historical
events in The
Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar are the same as The
Cross and the Dragon. Did that make it
easier to write?
Surprisingly,
no. The basic facts remain, but the characters’ perceptions yield a very
different story.
King
Charles is a hero to Alda, the protagonist of The Cross and the Dragon, but a monster to Leova and her children.
Another
example comes from three emirs’ visiting the Frankish assembly in Paderborn in
777 to secure an alliance with Charles to conquer territories in Hispania. Alda
has a premonition of disaster. But Leova’s son, Deorlaf, sees an opportunity
for his people to retake Saxony, and he ponders that if he had even a fraction
of the emirs’ riches he could buy his family’s freedom.
Same
historical event, but vastly different reactions.
Kim Rendfeld is the author of The Cross and the Dragon (2012, Fireship Press) and The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar (August 28, 2014, Fireship Press). To read the first chapters of either novel or learn more about Kim, visit kimrendfeld.com. You’re also welcome to visit her blog Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld, connect with her on Goodreads at www.goodreads.com/Kim_Rendfeld, check out her Amazon page at www.amazon.com/author/kimrendfeld, or contact her at kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.
