Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Lucille Turner on THE SULTAN, THE VAMPYR AND THE SOOTHSAYER

This week, we're pleased to welcome author LUCILLE TURNER with her latest release,  THE SULTAN, THE VAMPYR AND THE SOOTHSAYER.. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's Sunday's author interview for a chance to win a FREE copy of the novel - open internationally. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

1442: The Ottoman Turks are advancing through the Balkans with Vienna in their sights and Constantinople, the Orthodox Greek capital, within their grasp. Dracul, ruler of Wallachia (present-day Romania), will pay almost any price to save his country, but he will not surrender to the blackmail of the cardinals of Rome; he will not betray the Greeks.

When Vlad, his middle son, begins to show signs of the ancestral sickness, Dracul vows to deliver him into safety. But time is running short. To some, Vlad Dracula is a strigoi, the worst of all evils; to others, he is the son of a righteous man. Confrontational, charismatic and manipulative, he tests family and enemy alike. Surely he is destined for power, but of what kind?

The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer weaves a web of intrigue in a world that will divide forever. As Eastern Europe struggles against the tide of a Muslim advance it cannot counter, Western Christendom needs only one prize to overthrow its enemies – the ancient scrolls of the library of Constantinople.

**Q&A with Lucille Turner**

 Is this a ‘vampire book’?

No, the vampire element in this book takes the form of an inner struggle, which the real vampire myth actually represents. That is not to say that there are not other references to the vampire persona, because there are, except that these ‘vampire’ elements do not involve fangs and blood. They are subtler than that, and based on the folklore of Romania and Transylvania rather than on the sensationalistic elements that have developed over the last century or so. This is historical fiction, but with an element of the supernatural running through it in the form of myth and legend. The Ottoman side of the story also has its own superstitions, its own fears, and when Vlad Dracula bursts upon the scene, things do not become any simpler.

How much of this story is true?

True to the genre of historical fiction, the historical facts about the life of Vlad Dracula, his family and that of the Ottoman dynasty have been preserved in this book as far as they are known. Vlad Dracula and his younger brother Radu spent a number of years at the palace of the Ottoman Sultan Murad II, where they encountered the Sultan’s notorious son Mehmet. The unsustainable politics that forced the Dracul family into such a tight corner were certainly responsible for the tragedies the family as a whole was forced to endure. As for the parts of the book that touch upon the myth of the vampire, or strigoi, in Romania, these are based on documented evidence from the region itself, which has a cult of the dead on a par with Ancient Egypt. I drew on this folklore when I wrote the book, as well as on the stories of the Goths, and their close cousins the Getae, of Gets, who populated the Black Sea regions in ancient times. There I found a link to the vampire myth in the legend of the wolf-men of the Goths and the ‘twice-born’ of the Gets. It was these legends and myths, together with the local customs and traditions based around the locally undisputed existence of the Romanian strigoi that helped me re-imagine the connection between the Dracul family and their ‘vampire’ future.

What was the inspiration for the book?

The initial inspiration for The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer came after I visited Istanbul in 2012. What fascinated me about the Topkapı palace at Istanbul was the harem, which was a real labyrinth of courtyards and rooms. It struck me as a prison, which is effectively what it was, even though many historians stress the power that certain women had at one point in the seraglio of the Ottoman court. Nevertheless, it was a kind of female prison, and the female characters in my book, on the Ottoman side, are forced to battle against not only their keepers, the men, but also against their fellow inmates, the women — none of which makes for an easy life.

The second element of the book, the Romanian or Rumani one, was suggested by a book on Romanian folklore, discovered in a French library. The book is out of print now; if that book was not the last copy in circulation, it was certainly one of the last. It was a documented exploration of the myth of the Romanian vampire, complete with bibliography. It presented the vampire in a totally new light, and inspired me to view the vampire myth differently.

What is the book really about?

The principal theme of the book is the struggle between good and evil. There is also the clash of two civilisations and two faiths, Christian and Muslim. That is not to say that one is good and the other bad — not at all. On each side both fathers have sons who were not meant to rule but who end up on the throne. Both fathers have dreams for their country, but their sons have other plans. It has to end badly, and it does. But still, the real enemy is not on the battlefields of the Balkans or even at the walls of Constantinople, it is the enemy within, the darker side in all of us that pushes us to take what we want, regardless of the cost.

Learn more about author Lucille Turner

Author’s website: http://www.lucilleturner.com/
 
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sultan-Vampyr-Soothsayer-Lucille-Turner/dp/1527202062/
 
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Sultan-Vampyr-Soothsayer-Lucille-Turner/dp/1527202062/
 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucilleETurner
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucilleETurner/
 
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32313477-the-sultan-the-vampyr-and-the-soothsayer

New & Noteworthy: December 16

J. K. Knauss's SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS debuted December 15 to great fanfare in the historical fiction community. The Grand Book Launch Blog Tour is still going on with more historical tidbits and short historical fiction freebies. Congratulations Jessica!

The first four of Alison Morton's Roma Nova thrillers were published by Audible UK on 15 December, just in time for Christmas!

Find out more about the audiobooks 

Download the interview with Alison from Audible UK (free) 

Watch the mini interview on YouTube: 



The contributors of Unusual Historicals wish you a safe and happy holiday season and all the best in 2017. 

Excerpt Thursday: THE SULTAN, THE VAMPYR AND THE SOOTHSAYER by Lucille Turner

This week, we're pleased to welcome author LUCILLE TURNER with her latest release,  THE SULTAN, THE VAMPYR AND THE SOOTHSAYER. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win a FREE copy of the novel - open internationally. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

1442: The Ottoman Turks are advancing through the Balkans with Vienna in their sights and Constantinople, the Orthodox Greek capital, within their grasp. Dracul, ruler of Wallachia (present-day Romania), will pay almost any price to save his country, but he will not surrender to the blackmail of the cardinals of Rome; he will not betray the Greeks.

When Vlad, his middle son, begins to show signs of the ancestral sickness, Dracul vows to deliver him into safety. But time is running short. To some, Vlad Dracula is a strigoi, the worst of all evils; to others, he is the son of a righteous man. Confrontational, charismatic and manipulative, he tests family and enemy alike. Surely he is destined for power, but of what kind?

The Sultan, the Vampyr and the Soothsayer weaves a web of intrigue in a world that will divide forever. As Eastern Europe struggles against the tide of a Muslim advance it cannot counter, Western Christendom needs only one prize to overthrow its enemies – the ancient scrolls of the library of Constantinople.

**An Excerpt from THE SULTAN, THE VAMPYR AND THE SOOTHSAYER**

‘I don’t understand.’ Vlad lowered his sword. ‘You want me to stop because I’m good?’

‘No, said his father. ‘I want you to stop because you are good enough.’

‘But Cazan wants me to train. He says…’

‘I will tell Cazan myself. You needn’t worry.’

‘And Mircea, must he stop too?’

‘Mircea can use a sword adequately; that is good enough, as it is good enough for you. As for Radu, he is too young. Does that satisfy you?’

A venomous thought invaded Vlad’s mind. ‘And what about the other son? Have you forbidden him too?’

His face a bedrock of stone, his father opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

There was a difficult silence. Vlad was about to sheathe his sword and take his leave, when his father finally broke it. ‘You do have a half-brother. I did not bring him to court because the child was unwell and needed care I could not give him. If I have not spoken about it before, it was because I felt that it was not important. But since you have brought the matter up, so be it.’

Vlad stared at the ground, suddenly ashamed. His father touched his arm. His father’s fingers were long and white, like a woman’s. At the feel of them he softened.

‘Where is Mircea?’

‘In the music room.’

His father put an arm around his shoulders. ‘Come with me.’

He lifted a torch from the wall and they took the palace stairs down to where the living quarters ended and the cellars began. The cellars ran underneath the palace grounds as far as the arena where they trained. As they walked through what was almost a tunnel of stone, Vlad tried hard not to think about the training sessions with Mircea, now forbidden. On the right was the entrance to the storerooms. They turned left and his father pushed open a heavy door into a large stone room, dry as dust and filled with books and parchment. The door breathed out an odour of wood and hide. There was no window, but the light was coming from somewhere. Vlad noticed a stone vent at eye level. So this was his father’s private room; this was where he disappeared when he did not want to talk, to this place of books and dust. There was a long wooden table in the middle of the room with benches around it. The wall was lined with ledges of wood and these were filled with rolls of parchment, and papyrus sheets. He felt a pang of disappointment.

‘I think you have enjoyed Aristotle. That is good. It pleases me.’ His father pushed a seat towards him and began to search through a pile of parchment. He pulled out a roll and opened it on the table.

‘Do you know what this is?’

Vlad looked at the drawing before him, a stretch of parchment full of shapes that wound between each other in snaking trajectories of ink; there were place names he recognised marked upon it in script, and distances were written in figures in between. ‘Is it a drawing for a Roman cursus publicus?’

‘In a manner of speaking, but it’s more than just one area; it’s a mappa mundi, a record of distance and place. It was drawn by a man called Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria.’

Vlad leaned over it and put his finger in the centre, a little to the right. Constantinopolis.

‘Yes, our patriarchate is on it, so is Antioch, and Rome is marked there.’

Vlad looked into the deepest corners of the basement room. On a far ledge was a more interesting shape, an old leather scabbard on a ledge. His father saw him looking; he rose from his chair and picked it up. It was a sword. He laid it on the table without unsheathing it.

‘But I didn’t think…’

‘That I owned one,’ finished his father, quickly. ‘As you can see, I do.’

‘But you don’t use it?’

‘I chose not to, long ago.’

Vlad shook his head. ‘Not even against the Turks?’

‘I have my reasons. One of them is that it is better to talk than to fight. And while I still have a tongue to speak with I would rather use that than take a risk that could prove irreversible.’ His father looked down at the parchment on the table, his brow furrowed. ‘I brought you down here to show you the mappa mundi, the cursus publicus as you called it, but it does not surprise me that the sword found you first.’ He unsheathed it and ran a finger over the blade. A thin line of red appeared on the tip and he smoothed it away with his hand.

‘The Romans are our cousins; we are family now. They conquered us; we conquered them. That was how it was in those days, but without the knowledge of Ptolemy they would have stayed what they always were.’

‘Fishermen?’

‘No, farmers,’ said his father, distracted by the sword. ‘There was a time, long ago, when a farmer could change the world, but now the world is changing by itself and I hope it will be for the better. There are new ideas abroad, wonderful ideas that will transform everything. One day we will no longer need scribes. Their work will be over. Christendom will enter a new age and I want Wallachia to be at the head of it. I want the Rumani to be great again. What I am trying to say,’ his father said, putting down the sword, ‘is that if you have to choose one day between the knowledge and the sword, you would do better to take the knowledge.’

Vlad looked from his father’s mappa mundi on the table to the shining blade beside it. ‘And if I can take both?’

His father almost smiled. ‘Then you will either be a tyrant or a deliverer,’ he said softly. ‘Only first you must deliver yourself.’ 

Learn more about author Lucille Turner

Author’s website: http://www.lucilleturner.com/
 
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sultan-Vampyr-Soothsayer-Lucille-Turner/dp/1527202062/
 
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Sultan-Vampyr-Soothsayer-Lucille-Turner/dp/1527202062/
 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucilleETurner
 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LucilleETurner/
 
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32313477-the-sultan-the-vampyr-and-the-soothsayer

Author Interview & Book Giveaway: J. K. Knauss on SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS

This week, we're pleased to welcome author and Unusual Historicals contributor J. K. Knauss with her first historical novel, SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS, a saga of family, betrayal, and revenge in medieval Spain.

We're giving away two signed print copies and three ebooks of Seven Noble Knights free. Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom of this post or Thursday's wedding scene excerpt for a chance to win. 

Spain, 974. Gonzalo, a brave but hotheaded knight, unwittingly provokes tragedy at his uncle’s wedding to beautiful young noblewoman Lambra: the adored cousin of the bride dead, his teeth scattered across the riverbank. Coveting his family’s wealth and power, Lambra sends Gonzalo’s father into enemy territory to be beheaded, unleashing a revenge that devastates Castile for a generation.

A new hero, Mudarra, rises out of the ashes of Gonzalo’s once great family. Raised as a warrior in the opulence of Muslim Córdoba, Mudarra must make a grueling journey and change his religion, then chooses to take his jeweled sword to the throats of his family’s betrayers. But only when he strays from the path set for him does he find his true purpose in life.

Inspired by a lost medieval epic poem, Seven Noble Knights draws from history and legend to bring a brutal yet beautiful world to life in a gripping story of family, betrayal, and love.

**Q & A with J. K. Knauss**

How did you come to write about medieval Spain?

For the longest time I pursued my two passions, writing and Spain, separately, as if the twain could never meet. It wasn't until after I'd completed a PhD in medieval Spanish literature that I realized I could approach this material in a more exciting way. My dissertation advisor had remarked, "You like to tell stories, don't you?" It was finally time to do something about it!

Said to be the sarcophagi of the seven noble
 knights, San Millán de Suso.
Photo by J. K. Knauss 

Tell us about the legend on which Seven Noble Knights is based and how you became fascinated with it.

The first time I heard of the seven noble knights was during a faculty-led tour of Córdoba during a fantastic study abroad semester. "This is where they hung the heads," the professor said, pointing to an archway. That was too gruesome to interest me at the time. The next time I encountered the legend was during my PhD studies. The events may really have happened in the late tenth century, and the story ended up in thirteenth-century historical writing. In the early twentieth century, scholars noticed the historical prose rhymed and maintained a poetic meter in places! Yes, the story probably circulated orally as an epic poem or song, and yes, one character throws a bloody cucumber at another. Everything about this legend is fascinating. Many places, aside from that archway in Córdoba, lay claim to some aspect of the heroic yet familiar, dearly beloved characters.

The crest of Salas de los Infantes shows
nine of the legend's characters.
Photo by J. K. Knauss 

Are many of the characters drawn from history?

I had a lot of fun making up a few supporting characters based on my historical research and the needs of the drama. I don't think the hero of the novel, Mudarra, ever existed. The epic poets or the historians likely created him to satisfy their deep-seated need for revenge for the protagonists. That gave me the freedom to develop his character from an automatic revenge machine into a thoughtful, talented young man with doubts and desires of his own.

On the other hand, the Count of Castile, Caliph Hisham, and Almanzor, acting governor of Andalucía—heads of state—are all verified in the historical record. The González family of the region of Lara held a high status throughout the Middle Ages, and in chancery records we find mention of Gundisalvus (Gonzalo), one of my protagonists, and one Flammula, the likely namesake of my villain, Doña Lambra.

How did you find all this out? 

Picking up medieval law codes, chancery records, and history books might not appeal to many, but in me they have a rapt audience. I think the joy of finding an unexpected tidbit that illuminates an obscure literary passage (like the bloody cucumber) comes through in a vivid, exciting novel. 

Although Seven Noble Knights is realistic and historically accurate overall, there are ghosts in Part Two. Do you consider this magical realism? 

Seven Noble Knights is the first fiction I've written that strives for strict realism. There are, in fact, magical occurrences in the source materials. In the interest of historical realism, I explain a man regaining his sight with a detailed account of medieval eye surgery, and rather than claiming that a broken ring magically fuses together, I have the ring reforged. The medieval sources don't mention ghosts, but I based my ghosts on research about medieval Islamic and Christian beliefs about spiritual manifestations. The ghosts are real to the characters, so they're medieval realism, rather than magical realism. 

Seven Noble Knights will debut December 11 from Encircle Publications.

And remember to enter below to win one of two signed print copies or three ebooks of Seven Noble Knights free.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

J. K. Knauss earned her PhD in medieval Spanish with a dissertation on the portrayal of Alfonso X’s laws in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which has been published as the five-star-rated Law and Order in Medieval Spain. Look for her book of stories based on the Cantigas, coming 2021. A driven fiction writer, J. K. Knauss has edited many fine historical novels and is a bilingual freelance editor. Her historical epic, Seven Noble Knights, will debut on December11, 2020, from Encircle Publications. Her contemporary paranormal Awash in Talent is now available from Kindle Press. Find out more about her writing and bookish activities here. Follow her on  Facebook and Twitter, too!

Excerpt Thursday: SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS by J. K. Knauss

This week, we're pleased to welcome author and Unusual Historicals contributor J. K. Knauss with her first historical novel, SEVEN NOBLE KNIGHTS, a saga of family, betrayal, and revenge in medieval Spain.

Join us again on Sunday for an author interview with more details about the story behind the story. We're giving away two signed print copies and three ebooks of Seven Noble Knights free. Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway at the bottom of this or Sunday's post.

Spain, 974. Gonzalo, a brave but hotheaded knight, unwittingly provokes tragedy at his uncle’s wedding to beautiful young noblewoman Lambra: the adored cousin of the bride dead, his teeth scattered across the riverbank. Coveting his family’s wealth and power, Lambra sends Gonzalo’s father into enemy territory to be beheaded, unleashing a revenge that devastates Castile for a generation.

A new hero, Mudarra, rises out of the ashes of Gonzalo’s once great family. Raised as a warrior in the opulence of Muslim Córdoba, Mudarra must make a grueling journey and change his religion, then chooses to take his jeweled sword to the throats of his family’s betrayers. But only when he strays from the path set for him does he find his true purpose in life.

Inspired by a lost medieval epic poem, Seven Noble Knights draws from history and legend to bring a brutal yet beautiful world to life in a gripping story of family, betrayal, and love.

Early praise for Seven Noble Knights

“Let Seven Noble Knights welcome you to historical fiction! …it’s a rich saga populated with characters you will grow to love (and a few you will love to hate). The ancient empires of Spain are a beautiful backdrop to the struggles of humankind across all generations of all lands: romance, revenge, war, and adventure.”    

—Pushcart Prize nominee Reneé Bibby, The Writers Studio

Excerpt from Seven Noble Knights, Part One, Chapter III: The Wedding

Young Gonzalo’s uncle, Ruy Blásquez, is receiving Doña Lambra as a bride in exchange for his service to Castile. Gonzalo isn’t at all sure Lambra should be marrying his uncle.

Doña Sancha shooed her sons away from the cathedral door and drew dried herbs and flowers from pockets Gonzalo hadn’t known were inside her tunic and cloak. With a stick, she carved a large circle on the hard earth. Doña Sancha set the herbs and flowers inside the circle in a pattern with meanings she might have shared with a daughter, but were a mystery to Gonzalo.

“You’ll stand here,” she told her brother, Ruy Blásquez. “When your bride comes from that side, you’ll step inside the circle together.” She arranged her husband and sons on Ruy Blásquez’s side of the circle. Gonzalo ended up next to his uncle, so close he could hear each shallow breath he took.

Count García arrived with a full complement of knights and squires and four banners in white with red castles, as well as a fiddler and a flutist who made ready to play. So many people in the plaza must have been making the loudest ruckus since the city had been won from the Moors, but Gonzalo heard nothing.

From between the buildings at the far end of the plaza emerged forty women who walked with their hair covered to emphasize their married status. Their laughter and singing couldn’t distract Gonzalo from Doña Lambra, who tottered on their shoulders.

An heirloom beaded necklace competed with her yellow hair, shining in tight plaits on her shoulders with ornamental brass tips that looked as if they had come out of a treasure chest long ago. A mail girdle, inlaid with brass and pieces of jet at the edges, cinched her bright blue tunic from under her breastbone to down over her hips. Gonzalo shivered at the thought of the bitter touch of the matching mail sleeves, from the decorated wristlets up to her shoulders. A burgundy-colored cloak edged with three rows of golden braid was fastened over her shoulder with a gilded brooch in the shape of a lion rampant. A square cap, decorated all around with braid and gold carbuncles, looked like a royal crown. Gonzalo imagined he wasn’t at his uncle’s wedding, but that this bride had come from the farthest reaches of Christendom to marry the King of Navarra or León.

The married women set Lambra down in the middle of their ranks. She let the cloak fan out behind her unsteady stride. Her face was frozen into a grimace like the one the Virgin Mary wore as she cradled the Savior’s dead body inside the cathedral.

Gonzalo remembered Lambra’s grin at the banquet days before, when her mouth had dripped red with juices from the roasted bull’s testicles and the sauce-engorged bread trencher. Each time she received the goblet, she had made sure to turn it so that her lips didn’t touch the same spot as Ruy Blásquez’s. She didn’t take the same precaution against Álvar Sánchez, seated on her other side. Gonzalo could hardly taste his food through a choking desire to throw his eating knife across the table into the gloating knight’s hand so it could never touch Lambra so familiarly again.

There he was now, that upstart Álvar Sánchez, wearing just as juicy a grin, so close to Doña Lambra that the obnoxious curl on the toe of his boot intruded on the magic circle.

“What is that blasphemous behemoth doing there? Shouldn’t a member of the groom’s family stand next to the bride?” Gonzalo whispered to Gustio.

Gustio knocked his elbow into Gonzalo’s ribs. “Why? Were you hoping it would be you, little brother?” He chortled until their mother hissed at them to be silent.

Count García was addressing the crowd. “…with these deeds, Ruy Blásquez has earned as a bride my loveliest cousin, probably the most beautiful woman Castile has seen since my mother joined the Kingdom of Heaven. May they live many more years and have many loyal Castilian children.” He raised his arms, which the crowd took as a sign to cheer and shout.

Gonzalo noticed that his uncle had already moved into the circle and reached for Lambra’s hands. She was looking at Ruy Blásquez, but not with love or even curiosity. It was a look of judgment. Gonzalo tried to imagine how his uncle’s soft eyes, long nose, and weak chin fared on Lambra’s scale.

“I receive you as mine, so that you become my wife and I your husband,” Ruy Blásquez said. Gonzalo was relieved to glimpse him smiling widely, displaying his straight, white teeth to his judge in the form of a bride.

Ruy Blásquez smiled and waited, waited and smiled. Gonzalo witnessed a thousand expressions cross Lambra’s face like clouds in a stormy sky. At last, Lambra’s maid emerged from the crowd and leaned over the circle. “I receive you as mine…” she prompted so quietly that Gonzalo had to read her lips.

“I receive you as mine so that you become my… husband… and I your… wife,” said Doña Lambra, her eyes narrow. She pulled her hand away from Ruy Blásquez to wipe at her plump lips, as if the words had sullied them.

She craned her neck to look at Álvar Sánchez and Gonzalo knew she wished she had said the words to him. His heart beat faster. Then she shifted her gaze to Gonzalo. He felt as if he were smothered with the parsley, fennel, red carrot, and beet sauce from the banquet. Such was the hunger he saw in her eyes, a hunger he couldn’t help but feel, too, and which raged all the more, the more he tried to contain it. He remembered the way the bull’s testicles had flopped onto Doña Lambra’s trencher under their own weight and the way they deflated when she plunged her knife into the center of the sacs.

He stopped a startled cry in his throat.

“Long live the newlyweds!” The crowd shouted until they were the only words Gonzalo remembered ever hearing.

Seven Noble Knights will debut December 11 from Encircle Publications.

Find out some of the research involved in this wedding scene here.

See the book trailer with specially commissioned art by Ayal Pinkus.

And remember to enter below for a chance to win one of 2 signed softcover copies or one of three ebooks of Seven Noble Knights!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

J. K. Knauss earned her PhD in medieval Spanish with a dissertation on the portrayal of Alfonso X’s laws in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, which has been published as the five-star-rated Law and Order in Medieval Spain. Look for her book of stories based on the Cantigas, coming 2021. A driven fiction writer, J. K. Knauss has edited many fine historical novels and is a bilingual freelance editor. Her historical epic, Seven Noble Knights, will debut on December 11, 2020, from Encircle Publications. Her contemporary paranormal Awash in Talent is now available from Kindle Press. Find out more about her writing and bookish activities here. Follow her on  Facebook and Twitter, too!

Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Elisabeth Hobbes on THE SAXON OUTLAW'S REVENGE

This week, we're pleased to welcome author ELISABETH HOBBES with her latest release,  THE SAXON OUTLAW'S REVENGE. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's  author interview for a chance to win a digital copy of the novel. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

At the mercy of her enemy! 

Abducted by Saxon outlaws, Constance Arnaud comes face-to-face with Aelric, a Saxon boy she once loved. He's now her enemy, but Constance must reach out to this rebel and persuade him to save her life as she once saved his…

Aelric is determined to seek vengeance on the Normans who destroyed his family. Believing Constance deserted him, he can never trust her again. Yet, as they are thrown together and their longing for each other reignites, will Aelric discover that love is stronger than revenge?

**Q&A with Elisabeth Hobbes*

What is the elevator pitch for your latest book?

A Norman/Saxon reunion revenge romance.  Enemies - or those who by rights should be enemies - to lovers is one of my favourite tropes.

Do your characters have any basis in fact?

Constance is fictional but Aelric was based on a number of real life figures including Eadric the Wild and Hereward the Wake.  Both were Anglo Saxon noblemen or thegns who resisted the rule of the Normans, though in different parts of the country to where The Saxon Outlaw’s Revenge takes place.  These men were among many who took refuge in the countryside after being displaced by the new rulers.  According to history, both Eadric and Hereward did eventually reach a compromise with the Normans and were pardoned, which at least gives Aelric and Constance the hope of a happy ending.

It wasn’t just the Saxons that newly crowned King William had to contend with, but occasionally his own supporters and Constance is set a task of discovering whether her hated brother-in-law Robert de Coudray is involved in possible rebellious behaviour.

Hugh D’Avranches, Constance’s friend who sets her this task in return for helping her gain admittance to a convent is the only historical person.  He was the Palatine Earl of Chester at the time and says early in the book that he would found a holy order himself if it would please Constance, which of course in actual fact he did.

Your last book, The Blacksmith’s Wife, was set in your hometown.  Is your new book also set there?

The Saxon Outlaw’s Revenge is set in the area where I now live which is East Cheshire.  In the Domesday book, it is in the Hundred of Hamestan so this is the name I gave to the village where Aelric’s father had been thegn and which Constance’s brother in law, Robert, was granted after the conquest.  It’s an area with stunning scenery, especially around Alderley Edge with a steep sandstone ridge over what would have been thick forest that looks over the vale.  There is evidence of Bronze Age and Roman mining and it makes a perfect place for Aelric and his group of outlaws to hide.

This book is much darker in tone than your previous ones.  Why is that?

It’s a very dark period in history.  Lives and families were destroyed on a wide scale and the political, social and cultural face of England was changed forever in the aftermath of the conquest.   Without wanting to delve too deeply into it - this is a romance after all not a textbook- I wanted to do that justice and show the impact on the lives of different people including the dispossessed men such as Aelric and his companions and the villagers who remained whether they had been now struggling under new rule.  To write a light-hearted story felt like it would diminish the experiences of the people who lived through it but I think there are enough moments of hope and positivity in it too.

The book is released in December.  Is it a Christmas story?

Not at all!  The first chapter takes place in Autumn and the second, seven years later, moves the story to early Spring.  It completely bypasses the festive period.

Having said that, there is a tradition of Christmas stories being dark but ultimately leading to redemption.

Because of her act of mercy towards Aelric at the start of the story, Constance suffers both physical and mental pain and loss in her brutal marriage.  Aelric has lost everything, his home, family and his belief in his own self-worth.  He is driven by revenge, which rarely ends in anything positive.  They are two damaged people struggling to find themselves and each other.  I wanted to offer the suggestion that through reaching an understanding and embracing what we have in common rather than fixating on what divides us, people can come together to build a future- something that at this moment in time seems more important than ever.  In my mind, there isn’t a more Christmassy message than ‘peace on Earth and goodwill to all’.

What next?

I’m writing the story of Roger Danby, the villain from The Blacksmith’s Wife.  He was a fun character to write and towards the end of that book showed that he was not all bad, but Joanna was completely wrong for him.  I want to see him pitched against a heroine who won’t as much hero-worship him as smack him round the head with a soup bowl and make him shape up!

Get your copy of The Saxon Outlaw’s Revenge now at:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FD5ZC72

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-saxon-outlaw-s-revenge-mills-boon-historical

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-saxon-outlaws-revenge-elisabeth-hobbes/1123773847?ean=9780373299102

Harlequin: http://www.harlequin.com/storeitem.html?iid=68296

Learn more about author ELISABETH HOBBES at her website.