Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...: August 2021

Tuesday 24 August 2021

Wednesday Wanderings with Amy Maroney - The Island of Rhodes...

visiting around and about,
wandering here and there...

Island of Gold...

Amy Maroney

Hello Helen! Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog. [my pleasure, Amy!]

Island of Gold, the first book in my Sea and Stone Chronicles series, was inspired by a 2012 visit to the Greek island of Rhodes with my family. I was struck by the kindness of the people there, and by the beauty.

Sapphire seas beckoned to us. The sun-baked beaches and limestone cliffs were cooled by a wind that rose up each afternoon. White-washed little villages clung to hillsides overlooking sparkling bays. When we ventured into the forested, hilly interior, we found a verdant world clothed in pine and cypress forests. Ancient temples and toppled statues of Greek goddesses existed alongside crumbling walls and forts built by the medieval Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St. John.

I knew within the first twenty-four hours that I had to learn more. Luckily, we had three whole weeks on the island—plenty of time to absorb the beauty and history around us.

Street of the Knights, ©Unsplash photo

No place on Rhodes fascinated me as much as Rhodes Town. The largest community on the island, Rhodes Town has been a thriving port for millennia. In the medieval era, the Knights Hospitaller ruled Rhodes and the surrounding islands from a palace overlooking the bustling harbor. The knights were few in number—about three hundred knights lived in Rhodes Town during the mid-fifteenth century, when Island of Gold takes place—but they were supplemented by thousands of mercenary soldiers and bolstered by their powerful naval fleet. Their primary goal was to defend Christendom from Muslim forces in the East, both the Ottoman Turks and the Mamluks who ruled Egypt.

One day, we followed traces of the knights through Rhodes Town. Echoes of them lingered in the vaulted corridors of the hospital that once served local people, pilgrims en route to Jerusalem, and the knights themselves. Exiting the hospital, we followed a narrow cobbled lane up a hill. Known as the Street of the Knights, it’s lined with lovely medieval structures that once served as inns housing knights, pilgrims, and travelers.

medieval hospital in Rhodes Town. ©Unsplash photo

At the top of the hill, we entered the reconstructed palace of the Order and wandered through vast, formal chambers. We peeked into dim corridors where stone tablets carved with European knights’ coats-of-arms leaned against the walls. Staring at those dusty slabs of stone, I wondered who the knights had been. Where had they come from? How did they die? What had it been like for ordinary people living in the knights’ shadow? For women, especially?

We strolled down the hill from the palace to the harbor, where seawalls stretch out from stone quays to embrace the waves. I watched sailboats cruise in from the sapphire-blue waters of the Aegean and imagined the past. Would merchant galleys six hundred years ago be powered by sails, by oars, maybe by both? Did the merchants and the knights get along? Did the locals resent the knights? Who benefited from the Order’s presence? Who suffered?

I didn’t know it then, but I would one day find answers to my questions in the historical record. Some basic facts were easy to pin down. The Knights Hospitaller overtook Rhodes in the beginning of the 1300s and controlled it until the Ottoman Turks drove them out two centuries later. Under the knights’ rule, the island became a critical trade hub for merchants hailing from western Europe, Asia, north Africa, and the Black Sea. The center of operations was Rhodes Town’s heavily fortified harbor.

sea harbor entrance, Rhodes Town.
MaxPixel free creative commons license photo

Standing on a seawall during our visit, I imagined the Colossus of Rhodes straddling the space between the two jutting arms of stone that delineated the harbor. The Colossus was the only bit of historic trivia I’d learned about Rhodes before arriving there. I stared at the restless waves, lost in thought. I had no idea that once, merchant ships and war galleys swarmed the seas just beyond the harbor. A massive iron chain was drawn up each evening to block off the harbor from the sea. Warehouses thrummed with activity all along the waterfront, as did brothels. The clang of church bells all over Rhodes Town marked the hours, and inside the massive Sea Gate, townsfolk streamed to the fabled marketplace. There, spices, silks, furs, timber, and other goods were exchanged for gold.

All I heard as I stood watching the waves roll in that day was the sound of the wind. But history was whispering in my ears, too. And many years later, I listened.

The truth is, Rhodes cast a spell on me a decade ago that only grew deeper as the years wore on. When I decided to write about the island and its history, I had no idea what an incredible journey of research lay ahead. The secrets of history I’ve shared in Island of Gold are just the beginning…there are many more voices and stories of the past waiting for their turn in the spotlight. In time, the Sea and Stone Chronicles will reveal them all.

©Amy Maroney

About Island of Gold

1454. A noble French falconer. A spirited merchant’s daughter. And a fateful decision that changes their destiny forever.

When Cédric is recruited by the Knights Hospitaller to the Greek island of Rhodes, his wife Sophie jumps at the chance to improve their fortunes. After a harrowing journey to Rhodes, Cédric plunges into the world of the knights—while Sophie is tempted by the endless riches that flow into the bustling harbor. But their dazzling new home has a dark side.

Slaves toil endlessly to fortify the city walls, and rumors of a coming attack by the Ottoman Turks swirl in the streets. Desperate to gain favor with the knights and secure his position, Cédric navigates a treacherous web of shadowy alliances. Meanwhile, Sophie secretly engineers a bold plan to keep their children safe. As the trust between them frays, enemies close in—and when disaster strikes the island, the dangers of their new world become terrifyingly real.

With this richly-told story of adventure, treachery, and the redeeming power of love, Amy Maroney brings a mesmerizing and forgotten world to vivid life.

Buy the book:

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Helen's Latest Release

Available now!

A new edition with new additional scenes

https://viewbook.at/WhenMermaidSings

When the only choice is to run, where do you run to?

When the only sound is the song of the sea, do you listen?

Or do you drown in the embrace of a mermaid?

Throughout childhood, Jesamiah Mereno has suffered the bullying of his elder half-brother. Then, not quite fifteen years old, and on the day they bury their father, Jesamiah hits back. In consequence, he flees his Virginia home, changes his name to Jesamiah Acorne, and joins the crew of his father’s seafaring friend, Captain Malachias Taylor, aboard the privateer, Mermaid.

He makes enemies, sees the ghost of his father, wonders who is the Cornish girl he hears in his mind – and tries to avoid the beguiling lure of a sensuous mermaid...

An early coming-of-age tale of the young Jesamiah Acorne, set in the years before he becomes a pirate and Captain of the Sea Witch.

“Ms Hollick has skilfully picked up the threads that she alludes to in the main books and knitted them together to create a Jesamiah that we really didn't know.” Richard Tearle senior reviewer, Discovering Diamonds

“Captain Jesamiah Acorne is as charming a scoundrel as a fictional pirate should be. A resourceful competitor to Captain Jack Sparrow!” Antoine Vanner author

“Helen Hollick has given us the answer to that intriguing question that Jesamiah fans have been aching for – how did he start his sea-going career as a pirate?” Alison Morton, author

“I really enjoyed the insight offered into Jesamiah's backstory, and found the depiction of our teenage hero very moving.” Anna Belfrage, author

“I loved this little addendum to the Jesamiah series. I always had a soft spot for the Lorelei stories and enjoyed that the author cleverly brought her over from the Rhine valley to fit into the story.” Amazon Reviewer

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Helens cosy mystery set in 1970s north London

The first in a new series of quick-read,
cosy mysteries set in the 1970s.
A Mirror Murder
https://getbook.at/MirrorMurder

Eighteen-year-old library assistant Jan Christopher’s life is to change on a rainy Friday evening in July 1971, when her legal guardian and uncle, DCI Toby Christopher, gives her a lift home after work. Driving the car, is her uncle’s new Detective Constable, Laurie Walker – and it is love at first sight for the young couple.

But romance is soon to take a back seat when a baby boy is taken from his pram, a naked man is scaring young ladies in nearby Epping Forest, and an elderly lady is found, brutally murdered...

Are the events related? How will they affect the staff and public of the local library where Jan works – and will a blossoming romance survive a police investigation into murder?

Reviews

“A delightful read about an unexpected murder in North East London.” Richard Ashen (South Chingford Community Library)

“Lots of nostalgic, well-researched, detail about life in the 1970s, which readers of a certain age will lap up; plus some wonderful, and occasionally hilarious, ‘behind the counter’ scenes of working in a public library, which any previous or present-day library assistant will recognise!” Reader Review

Tuesday Talk:My guest Jonathan Harries

where guests can have their say about...
anything they want

A slow descent into the maelstrom of

madness of history

How delightfully ironic I thought when I Googled the origin of the phrase “options lead to insanity” and only seven very manageable options popped up. The fewest of anything I’ve looked up on Google recently. None, by the way, mentioned the origin.

I’ve been using the phrase for years and years and always attributed it to some unknown Zen master because someone once mentioned that it sounded like an expression a Zen master might use. Of course, that kind of thinking falls into the trap of “just because someone says it doesn’t make it true,” which is the very thing I struggle with the most in my research.

My latest book, The Carpet Salesman from Baghdad, takes place in 1858, the year the great Indian uprising against the rule of the British East India Company ended. It was also the year the British East India Company was forced to end its rule of India. Which, too, carries a certain hint of irony because it means that technically the revolt which historians labeled unsuccessful ultimately turned out to be successful. Or would have been if India hadn’t had to exchange occupation by one colonial army for another: that of the British Crown.

I called it the great Indian uprising because fortunately today one has the option of reading about it from the Indian perspective and not just the British. Until recently if you’d looked it up in an encyclopedia or read an historical account, you would have seen it referred to as the Indian Mutiny. From the British perspective that’s exactly how it was seen: soldiers of the Bengal Army mutinying against their British commanders. Indian historians see it very differently—that of an oppressed country (even though technically India wasn’t one country at the time) revolting against the yoke of their imperialist overlords. In 2007 India celebrated the 150th anniversary of what it called the First War of Independence against British Rule. This, however, is refuted by some Sikhs who contend that the Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-1846 was the First War of Independence.

So, there you have it. Just because someone called it a mutiny doesn’t mean it was, and just because someone else calls it the First War of Independence doesn’t mean it is. You the viewer, the reader, the researcher, are faced with the option of whom to believe. Whose version of history is more accurate. And the more you search, the harder it becomes to separate facts from feelings. Options may not lead to insanity, but they will drive you nuts.

The protagonist in The Carpet Salesman of Baghdad—my ancestor, Elias Smulian-Hasson—is summoned from Baghdad to India by the fabulously wealthy merchant David Sassoon—acting on behalf of the Maharaja of Kutch—to assassinate a particularly nasty British officer whose brutal acts of retribution against the survivors of the uprising sickened even his own men. Elias, in the almost-two-thousand-year tradition of the family of assassins, does his best to retain a neutral position because he knows that “emotional attachment to either side has a detrimental effect on both planning and execution.” In reading his diary, I came to believe he found it impossible to do, and ultimately fell in love with India, its people and its food. Whether this emotional lapse resulted in him nearly getting killed in an ambush in the Mahakali Caves just outside of Bombay or forced him to battle his nemesis in the treasure-filled vault of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, you will have to determine.

The Carpet Salesman from Baghdad is a prequel to The Tailor of Riga – a family history of dubious veracity in which I first exposed the millennia-old history of my family’s business, which we affectionately refer to as “You pick them; we stick them” because of the curved dagger or sica that is the tool of our trade. Truth or fiction? I’m reasonably sure you’ll work that out.

I hope you enjoy the story, and please know that any proceeds from sales go to various animal and wildlife charities.

Many thanks

Jonathan

About the book:

What if my highly dubious story of a two-thousand-year-old family of assassins turned out to be true? Can you blame a chap for wanting to turn his otherwise humdrum family into a bunch of assassins?

It turns out you can.

I found this out soon after my novel The Tailor of Riga was published, and I received a bunch of beastly emails and threats from incensed family members horrified that I’d portrayed them as the descendants of bloodthirsty hitmen. Then, out of the blue, a package arrived from a long-lost cousin in Argentina that changed everything. It was the diary of an unknown ancestor, Elias Smulian-Hasson, summoned from Baghdad to Bombay by the enormously wealthy David Sassoon to take on an assignment for the Maharajah of Kutch.

His mission was to find and kill a British officer responsible for some of the most brutal acts of retribution against Indian survivors of the Great Sepoy Uprising and retrieve a fortune in stolen gemstones. Elias pursues his quarry from Bombay to the Kingdom of Travancore, where the contemptible swine is planning to rob the vaults of the richest temple in the world.

Priceless treasures, mysterious maharajahs, unspeakably evil villains, and the beautiful Mozelle Jacob, a woman Elias will pursue to the ends of the earth, all blend together like a spicy chicken vindaloo in the next saga of the sica...

About Jonathan:

Jonathan Harries began his career as a trainee copywriter at Foote, Cone & Belding in South Africa and ended it as Chairman of FCB Worldwide with a few stops in between.

After winning his first Cannes Lion award, he was offered a job at Grey Advertising in South Africa, where he worked as a copywriter and ended up as CEO at age 29, just before emigrating to the US. Like most immigrants in those days, he started once again from scratch. After a five year stint as Executive Creative Director of Hal Riney in Chicago, he was offered a senior position at FCB. Within ten years, he became the Global Chief Creative Officer and spent the next ten traveling to over 90 countries, racking up 8 million miles on American Airlines alone.

He began writing his first novel, Killing Harry Bones, in the last year of his career and transitioned into becoming a full-time author three years ago, just after retiring from FCB. He’s been writing ever since while doing occasional consulting work for old clients.

Jonathan has a great love of animals, and he and his wife try to go on safari every year. They’ve been lucky enough to visit game reserves in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Tanzania, India, and Sri Lanka.

Website: www.jonathanharriesink.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/jonathanharriesink

Twitter Handle: @harriesjonathan

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You might Also like

Books By Helen Hollick

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

A Mirror Murder
#1 in the Jan Christopher
Cosy Mystery Series
set in a 1970s London library

Liked Pirates Of The Caribbean?
then you'll love the Sea Witch Voyages!

A new edition with new additional scenes

https://viewbook.at/WhenMermaidSings

Tuesday 17 August 2021

Wednesday Wanderings with Anna Belfrage and the Coffee Pot Book Club

visiting around and about,
wandering here and there...

Location, location!

Anna Belfrage (with assistance from Erin and Duncan)

“Location?” My protagonist Erin peers over my shoulder. “Who cares about location?” She takes a deep breath and glares at some of the women strolling past her without as much as a glance her way. My heart goes out to her.

“Hmph!” Erin says, before reminding me that this is all my idea. She never wanted to end up in 18th century Annapolis, thank you very much!

But now she has. That’s what happens when you’re the protagonist of The Whirlpools of Time.

Annapolis is a recurring location in my books, and our dashing male lead, Duncan Melville, was raised here. In 1715, Annapolis was a relatively new name for a relatively new place. The settlement on the Severn river was founded in 1649 or so by a group of die-hard Puritans who were determined to wrest the fair Colony of Maryland from its tolerant owner, the Catholic Baron Calvert. The Puritans named their little town Providence. The official name was Anne Arundel’s Town, but a good Puritan would rather fall on his rapier than live in a place named after a Catholic lady, so Providence it was. Until it was named Annapolis in honour of Princess Anne, who was definitely not Catholic. I imagine most old-timers continued to refer to their home town as Providence.

By 1715 things had changed. Not only was the Anglican congregation substantially larger than the Presbyterian/Puritan one, but Annapolis had caught on. A sizeable settlement, Annapolis was something of a commercial hub, trading in everything from slaves to imported luxuries. And where there is commerce, there are generally lawyers—which is fortunate for Duncan, as he is a man trained in law, by his father, by his father’s partner, but also by the University of Glasgow.

In 2011, I visited Annapolis and spent several happy hours walking up what remains of the colonial street plan. Not that I use it much in The Whirlpools of Time, but the fact that I know where the mill was, where the harbour warehouses stood, how the streets diverged like spokes on a wheel from the central market place, makes me feel secure in describing my chosen location.

However, far more important than the actual setting is conveying the attitudes and perceptions of the inhabitants of 18th century Annapolis. Theirs is a society where white skin automatically puts you at the top of the ladder, and when Duncan shows up with Erin, a woman whose lovely, golden skin speaks of non-white ancestry, the immediate assumption is that she must be a slave—or at least descended from one. Which, of course, is why Erin is being given the silent treatment. A son of this little town—a white son—and he weds a coloured hussy? Everyone in Annapolis wondered how Erin pulled that off.

“Pulled it off? Duncan is damned lucky to have me,” Erin says, but the way she twists her hands contradicts the self-assurance in her voice.

“Something I thank fate and the good Lord for daily,” Duncan lifts Erin’s hand to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss to her palm. She gives him a watery smile. They both know that his love and support won’t protect her from the prejudices and the vitriolic comments. Conflict is rife, putting it mildly…

The Whirlpools of Time is not set exclusively in Maryland. Actually, most of the story is set in Scotland. Other than a rather exciting excursion into the Highlands, Erin’s 18th century experience centres on Edinburgh.

Edinburgh 1769 Castle and Old Town

Obviously, I spent hours studying what maps I could find of Edinburgh in the beginning of the 18th century. But it isn’t only about the street plan. It’s about creating an illusion of the past, and to do so, you need to add smells and sounds, touch and feel, to sight.

In 18th century Edinburgh, narrow closes were bordered by houses—tenements—rising up to eight storeys on each side, effectively hindering any sunlight from reaching the cobbled ground. The tenements were crowded, and the further up you went, the poorer the tenants—for the simple reason that the higher floors were quite the death-trap should there be a fire.

It makes for an atmospheric setting: looming buildings, plenty of shadows for the baddies to hide in. It was damp, it was mildewy. The gutters were best avoided, the inhabitants emptying their chamber pots through their windows. Accordingly, the city smelled. A lot. Well, unless you stuck to the broader streets.

I am fortunate enough to have visited Edinburgh. And while I had to use my imagination to recreate the stench (phew!), one thing became apparent more or less immediately: anyone moving around in Edinburgh—and especially in the old town—was in for a good cardio session. I cannot recall any flat streets. They were either going up, up, up, or down, down, down. The jury is out on which is the worse—but I imagine in 1715 you did NOT want to slip while balancing your way downwards, as God alone knew what sort of mess you might land in.

Now, the benefit with both Edinburgh and Annapolis as settings for The Whirlpools of Time is that my characters are visiting these places three hundred years ago. Yes, we have maps, we have some descriptions, but ultimately no one knows exactly what it looked like. There is a certain leeway for the intrepid author here—especially in Annapolis, where very few of the Colonial buildings have survived the tooth of time.

It is somewhat trickier in Edinburgh: there are plenty of buildings around that would have been there already when Duncan and Erin visited. Once again, it is a source of confidence to have been there, slipped down a close in the rain, clambered up others to emerge totally winded before St Giles. I have walked where Erin walks, I have followed Duncan as he desperately searches one close after the other for his abducted wife.

“Huh,” says Erin, giving me a black look. “You’ve done all that walking in your—our—time. Let me tell you it is very, very different to do it in 1715!”

I believe her. And while I now and then wish I could do some real time travelling of my own, I would never do it without a return ticket. Unfortunately for Erin, she doesn’t have own of those!

About the book

He hoped for a wife. He found a companion through time and beyond.

It is 1715 and for Duncan Melville something fundamental is missing from his life. Despite a flourishing legal practice and several close friends, he is lonely, even more so after the recent death of his father. He needs a wife—a companion through life, someone to hold and be held by. What he wasn’t expecting was to be torn away from everything he knew and find said woman in 2016…

Erin Barnes has a lot of stuff going on in her life. She doesn’t need the additional twist of a stranger in weird outdated clothes, but when he risks his life to save hers, she feels obligated to return the favour. Besides, whoever Duncan may be, she can’t exactly deny the immediate attraction.

The complications in Erin’s life explode. Events are set in motion and to Erin’s horror she and Duncan are thrown back to 1715. Not only does Erin have to cope with a different and intimidating world, soon enough she and Duncan are embroiled in a dangerous quest for Duncan’s uncle, a quest that may very well cost them their lives as they travel through a Scotland poised on the brink of rebellion.

Will they find Duncan’s uncle in time? And is the door to the future permanently closed, or will Erin find a way back?

Trigger Warnings: Sexual Content. Violence.

Buy the book

Universal Link: http://myBook.to/WoT

Available on #KindleUnlimited.

About Anna

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series The Graham Saga, set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in 14th century England.

Anna has also published The Wanderer, a fast-paced contemporary romantic suspense trilogy with paranormal and time-slip ingredients. Her September 2020 release, His Castilian Hawk, has her returning to medieval times. Set against the complications of Edward I’s invasion of Wales, His Castilian Hawk is a story of loyalty, integrity—and love. Her most recent release, The Whirlpools of Time, is a time travel romance set against the backdrop of brewing rebellion in the Scottish highlands.

All of Anna’s books have been awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion, she has several Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choices, and one of her books won the HNS Indie Award in 2015. She is also the proud recipient of some Discovering Diamonds reviews, and various Reader’s Favorite medals as well as having won various Gold, Silver and Bronze Coffee Pot Book Club awards.

Find out more about Anna, her books and her eclectic historical blog on her website, www.annabelfrage.com .

Social Media Links:

follow the tour:

Twitter Handle: @abelfrageauthor @maryanneyarde

@coffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #TimeTravel #HistoricalRomance #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub

< PREVIOUS POST

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Helen's latest release

A new edition with new additional scenes

When the only choice is to run, where do you run to?

When the only sound is the song of the sea, do you listen?

Or do you drown in the embrace of a mermaid?

Throughout childhood, Jesamiah Mereno has suffered the bullying of his elder half-brother. Then, not quite fifteen years old, and on the day they bury their father, Jesamiah hits back. In consequence, he flees his home, changes his name to Jesamiah Acorne, and joins the crew of his father’s seafaring friend, Captain Malachias Taylor, aboard the privateer, Mermaid.

He makes enemies, sees the ghost of his father, wonders who is the Cornish girl he hears in his mind – and tries to avoid the beguiling lure of a sensuous mermaid...

An early coming-of-age tale of the young Jesamiah Acorne, set in the years before he becomes a pirate and Captain of the Sea Witch.

https://viewbook.at/WhenMermaidSings

and a cosy mystery set in 1970s north London

The first in a new series of quick-read,
cosy mysteries set in the 1970s.
A Mirror Murder
https://getbook.at/MirrorMurder

But romance is soon to take a back seat when a baby boy is taken from his pram, a naked man is scaring young ladies in nearby Epping Forest, and an elderly lady is found, brutally murdered...

Are the events related? How will they affect the staff and public of the local library where Jan works – and will a blossoming romance survive a police investigation into murder?

Reviews

“A delightful read about an unexpected murder in North East London.” Richard Ashen (South Chingford Community Library)

Tuesday Talk: Clare Marchant and The Queen's Spy! My Coffee Pot Book Club Guest

where guests can have their say about...
anything they want!

The Inspiration Behind my Novels

by Clare Marchant

To be asked what inspires my writing is probably the best question in the world - It means I can wax lyrical about everything that I love!

As a historical fiction author, a lot of my ideas and inspiration come from all the wonderful old buildings and artefacts that surround us today. The landscape, the flow of time and especially the connections we can feel with that history and the people who lived before us. I am lucky that where I live I have access to many old buildings, stately homes and churches where I can be found on most weekends with our dog Fred. He enjoys the walk, and I enjoy soaking up the ambience of centuries past. Also I can travel to Norwich, a medieval walled city with remarkable old buildings and a castle, together with museums and galleries.

Some of my favourite places to visit are the derelict monasteries that were ransacked and demolished during Henry VIII’s dissolution in the sixteenth century. There are plenty of these dotted across the country where we’re able to walk around and see how they would have once been. There is nothing I enjoy more than drifting through ancient rooms, abbeys, cloisters with my eyes closed, imagining the lives of all the monks who walked those passages before me. I can almost feel them gliding past, habits swishing on the ground still living their lives hundreds of years later. The architecture of the abbey buildings is incredible, where it still survives to this day we can only imagine how long and painstaking the work must have been to create such magnificence.

I’m also very keen on visiting old churches – most villages in England have an ancient church surrounded by graves so old they are frequently illegible, and inside there are signs everywhere of the people who over the years have come together to pray, celebrate or mourn. People connecting with each other.

As I’ve just described, I feel a link with our ancestors when I’m visiting the places where they lived, but I also love looking at the artefacts people owned, used and loved. I am inspired by imagining the ties people had with those items. Jewellery that might be given to a new bride by her husband, special memories attached to precious things which may have been secreted into pockets as men went off to war, or crusades. When young girls were sent to another home to marry a man they’d never met, what did they take with them to remember their family? What stories can those objects tell?

I often look at things that I own which are special to me; they may not be valuable in monetary terms, but in sentimental significance, they are priceless. I know I’m not the only person who has many items that my children made at school still scattered around the house and pictures attached to the fridge by magnets that track the many holidays and foreign cities I’ve visited seeking out works of art that inspire me. I have letters secreted away written by my (now elderly) mother who has been writing to me – or emailing these days – and they are a glimpse into our past. And it’s the past which inspires me most.

As well as our connections to objects that we own and love, are the threads that bind us to each other. We all have people we love, our family and friends, and I draw inspiration from those relationships. How we interact with others.

In The Queen’s Spy these connections are made very clear as the novel progresses. The connections between Tom and his mother Eleanor and all that she taught him that propels him to a job in Queen Elizabeth I's court. Then his connections with Walsingham and his spy network and also his relationship with Isobel and of course his precious triptych. Then in the present day, Mathilde arrives in England thinking she has no connections in the world – no family and no permanent home. But as the story progresses, we get to see that she is connected in more ways than she could have imagined to the family she has yet to meet.

All these people, places and objects have a story to tell us, and I like to think about how the lives of our ancestors are still a part of us today. It is said that ‘no man is an island’, and that is so true of our place in history.

We are all connected to our forefathers, not just through our genes, but in the memories and belongings they left behind for us.

1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary Queen of Scots will stop at nothing to take her cousin’s throne.

There’s only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen’s trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy…

2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England.

Just like Mathilde, the medieval hall she inherits conceals secrets, and she quickly makes a haunting discovery. Can she unravel the truth about what happened there all those years ago? And will she finally find a place to call home?

Buy the Book:

Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon CA

Amazon AU Barnes and Noble Waterstones

Kobo iBooks Audio

About the Author

Growing up in Surrey, Clare always dreamed of being a writer. Instead, she followed a career in IT, before moving to Norfolk for a quieter life and re-training as a jeweler.

Now writing full time, she lives with her husband and the youngest two of her six children. Weekends are spent exploring local castles and monastic ruins, or visiting the nearby coast.

Social Media Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClareMarchant1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/claremarchantauthor

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3fkuf2r

Follow the tour

Twitter Handles: @ClareMarchant1 @maryanneyarde

Hashtags: #TheQueensSpy #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://www.coffeepotbookclub.com/post/blog-tour-the-queen-s-spy-by-clare-marchant-16th-august-28th-august-2021

< PREVIOUS POST

*** ***

You might Also like

Books By Helen Hollick

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick

A Mirror Murder
#1 in the Jan Christopher
Cosy Mystery Series
set in a 1970s London library

Liked Pirates Of The Caribbean?
then you'll love the Sea Witch Voyages!

1066: the events that led to The Battle of Hastings
Harold the King (UK edition)
I Am The Chosen King (US edition)
1066 Turned Upside Down -
an anthology of alternative stories

Tuesday 10 August 2021

D K Marley's Novel, Kingfisher - my Tuesday Talk Coffee Pot Book Club guest

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The Inspiration Behind “Kingfisher”

by D. K. Marley

So many have asked me how I came up with the idea of this historical time travel novel and I always quote the famous line from Toni Morrison when she said, “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” When I first read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley decades ago, the book took my breath away and is still among one of my favorites of all time. I am a huge fan of Arthurian literature and keep my own copy of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King on my night stand.

When the COVID hit early in 2020, I was working on the next book in my Fractured Shakespeare series and found I was getting a bit bored with the topic. I wanted something more, something transcendant, especially after everyone started getting put in lockdown. It was then that I decided to binge-watch the Outlander series. I must admit, I had never read the books but the series completely engulfed me. It was after watching the first episode, the one where Clare falls through the stones of Craig na Dun, that the idea hit me. I remember saying to myself - “Wow, I’d love to read a story where a girl falls through something and awakens in Avalon.” The words of Toni Morrison voiced in my head. I took out my phone one day and typed out a brief outline. Within days, the story started developing and six months later, not only did I have the first novel written but the second and third were outlined. I knew this had to be the start of something.

The more research I did, the more everything fell into place, sometimes in the most strange and magical way; such as, I chose to have my character, Vala, become friends with well-known real-life woman art aficionado and philanthropist, Gwendoline Davies, not realizing that later in my research I would discover that Gwendoline’s brother was friends with H. G. Wells, and that both of them were associated with the Round Table Society of the 1900s, as well as being instrumental in forming the principles of the League of Nations. The puzzle fit perfectly together as I wanted Vala to transform into the Lady of the Lake, the High Priestess of Avalon whose sole purpose is to bring peace and balance to Britain, using key players such as King Arthur and the 4th-century Knights of the Round Table.

Every single book that have a special place in my own private library inspired parts of this book – H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, and Relativity by Albert Einstein. All of these books played a role in the development and inspiration in writing Kingfisher.

Lastly, I knew I wanted part of the story to revolve around the legend of the kingfisher bird as I interpreted the legend to involve the Lady of the Lake. The mythical bird makes her home near the water, near the sea, and waits for the perfect peaceful time in the year to raise her young, thus the meaning behind the ‘halcyon days’; the Lady of the Lake makes her home in Avalon near the waters of a mist-covered lake, and uses her abilities to bring peace to the land. Perhaps, the Lady is the goddess Alcyone, the one who was transformed by the Gods into a kingfisher, and throughout time she waits for a time when Britain needs her to restore peace to the land.

Another one of my inspirations for the novel is based on the line from Keats that reads, “Oh for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts.” This line is a thread throughout the novel and represents the distinction between the idyllic life of the Victorian era, and that of Camelot, versus the aftermath of WW1, and the destruction of King Arthur’s kingdom.

We all live during times of suffering and our own world has changed with the onset of this pandemic but how we emerge on the other side speaks a great deal of the courage and strength inside us all. Grief changes us, death changes us. Ultimately, the inspiration of Kingfisher lies in the commonality of the human condition and our desperate need to escape from time to time, whether in books or the imagination, and the beauty of hope lingering right there at the horizon. I am reminded of the line from The Great Gatsby –

“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . And one fine morning——So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Kingfisher

(The Kingfisher Series, Book One)

By D. K. Marley

The past, future, and Excalibur lie in her hands.

Wales, 1914. Vala Penrys and her four sisters find solace in their spinster life by story-telling, escaping the chaos of war by dreaming of the romantic days of Camelot. When the war hits close to home, Vala finds love with Taliesin Wren, a mysterious young Welsh Lieutenant, who shows her another world within the tangled roots of a Rowan tree, known to the Druids as ‘the portal’.

One night she falls through, and suddenly she is Vivyane, Lady of the Lake – the Kingfisher – in a divided Britain clamoring for a High King. What begins as an innocent pastime becomes the ultimate quest for peace in two worlds full of secrets, and Vala finds herself torn between the love of her life and the salvation of not only her family but of Britain, itself.

"It is, at the heart of it, a love story – the love between a man and a woman, between a woman and her country, and between the characters and their fates – but its appeal goes far beyond romance. It is a tale of fate, of power, and, ultimately, of sacrifice for a greater good." - Riana Everly, author of Teaching Eliza and Death of a Clergyman

Buy Links:

Available on #KindleUnlimited.

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About the Author

D. K. Marley is a Historical Fiction author specializing in Shakespearean adaptations, Tudor era historicals, Colonial American historicals, alternate historicals, and historical time-travel. At a very early age she knew she wanted to be a writer. Inspired by her grandmother, an English Literature teacher, she dove into writing during her teenage years, winning short story awards for two years in local competitions. After setting aside her writing to raise a family and run her graphic design business, White Rabbit Arts, returning to writing became therapy to her after suffering immense tragedy, and she published her first novel “Blood and Ink” in 2018, which went on to win the Bronze Medal for Best Historical Fiction from The Coffee Pot Book Club, and the Silver Medal from the Golden Squirrel Book Awards. Within three years, she has published four more novels (two Shakespearean adaptations, one Colonial American historical, and a historical time travel).

When she is not writing, she is the founder and administrator of The Historical Fiction Club on Facebook, and the CEO of The Historical Fiction Company, a website dedicated to supporting the best in historical fiction for authors and readers. And for fun, she is an avid reader of the genre, loves to draw, is a conceptual photography hobbyist, and is passionate about spending time with her granddaughter. She lives in Middle Georgia U.S.A. with her husband of 35 years, an English Lab named Max, and an adorable Westie named Daisy.

Social Media Links:

Website: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com

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