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| About the Book |
Book Title: The Will of God
Author: Julian de la Motte
Publication Date: May 13, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 292
Genre: Historical Fiction
"Deus Lo Vult!"
Gilles is the natural son of the Earl Waltheof, executed by William the Conqueror for supposed treachery. Raised in Normandy by Queen Matilda of England, Gilles is a young servant of Robert, Duke of Normandy, when the first call for a Holy War against the infidel and for the liberation of Jerusalem is raised in Christendom. Along with thousands of others, inspired by a variety of motives, intense piety mixed with a sense of adventure and the prospects of richness, Gilles becomes a key and respected follower of the Duke of Normandy and travels through France and into Italy to the point of embarkation for Constantinople and the land of the Greeks.
In this epic first phase of a long and gruelling journey, Gilles begins to discover a sense of his own strengths and weaknesses, encounters for the first time the full might and strength of the Norman war machine and achieves his much coveted aim of knighthood, as well as a sense of responsibility to the men that he must now lead into battle.
The Will of God is the literal translation of the Latin phrase "Deus Lo Vult"; a ubiquitous war cry and a commonly offered explanation of all the horrors and iniquities unleashed by the First Crusade of 1096 to 1099, when thousands of Europeans made the dangerous and terrifying journey to the Holy Land and the liberation of Jerusalem. It is the first of two books on the subject.
Praise for The Will of God:
"De la Motte has superpowers as a writer of historical fiction; he's a warhorse of a writer bred to stun and trample the literary senses. You won't stop turning the pages of The Will of God."
~ Charles McNair, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Land O'Goshen
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Author Bio:
Julian de la Motte is a Londoner. He graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in Medieval History. He was further awarded a Master of Arts qualification in Medieval English Art from the University of York.
He studied and taught in Italy for nearly four years before returning to the U.K. and a career as a teacher, teacher trainer and materials designer before taking up a new role as a Director of Foreign Languages and of English as a Foreign Language.
Married and with two grown up children, He is now extensively involved in review writing and historical research, primarily on medieval history.
''The Will of God'' [the first of two books on the subject of the First Crusade] is his third novel.
Author Links:
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| read an excerpt |
Excerpt 2:
When his father’s handsome and youthful head was separated from
his shoulders, his son Gilles was a sturdy and robust child just over a year
old and able to sit up and take note of things immediately around him. His
father’s crime had been that of a complicity in a treason that he had failed to
explain away with any degree of conviction or success. He may well, on this
particular occasion, have been wholly innocent; but it had happened once too
often in his brief political career to be overlooked. So, up the little hill
just outside Winchester he went. The mother of Gilles, the beautiful Eloise of
La Petite Flague, was, of course, devastated and it was said of that truly
peerless beauty that her glance remained forever downcast and tragic to the end
of her days.
Amongst the local people of the English, the former Earl soon
achieved the status of an unacknowledged saint. Even days after the execution
his head, or so it was said, when it was reattached to his body for the
purposes of a fit and proper Christian burial, bore a sweet smile of utter
serenity. Both the head and the body were fresh and bore the strong scent of
rosemary and thyme, untouched by the corruption of death. It was not long
before stories of miracles began to circulate. Nothing major or cosmic, there
was no raising of the dead nor any parting of any waves, but, rather, a
localised curing of warts and the removal of blinding headaches from an
itinerant cleric in minor orders. As with many saints before him, Waltheof was
obliged to start small in his saintly career.
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(note: Helen might not have read the featured title yet)
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Thank you so much for hosting Julian de la Motte today, with an intriguing excerpt from his new medieval adventure, The Will of God.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club