* In your latest historical novel, THE FRENCH MISTRESS, a poor young lady from the country arrives at the court of Louis XIV. What are some of the things which would have shocked your protagonist, Louise de Keroualle, upon her arrival?
I’d guess that the hardest thing for Louise to accept about the French royal court would likely have been its patent insincerity. The provincial Keroualles were pious and honorable, and Louise had been raised to be the same. She soon found out that life at Court was all about power, titles, and wealth; without any of them, she was virtually invisible, despite her beauty. Louise realized, too, that a great many unsavory secrets (marital infidelity and abuse, bisexuality, and homosexuality, were only a few that would have shocked a well-bred Catholic girl) hid behind handsome faces and beautiful clothes, and that if she wished to prosper, she must listen, observe, and adapt. In time the hard lessons she learned at Versailles and the Louvre carried her to great success in the English royal court in London.

*What drew you to the courts of King Louis XIV and King Charles II?
Louise de Keroualle’s position was a unique one. Once Charles II had admired Louise in the retinue of his sister, Henriette d’Angleterre, Duchesse d’Orleans, the French king was quick to see an advantage in his English cousin’s desire. Louis swiftly sent Louise to the English court, ostensibly to serve the queen, but really as a “gift” to Charles. Louis hoped the young girl would become a useful agent for France, directing the English king towards French interests by way of the royal bed. While Louise’s influence as a political agent proved limited, her unusual role did earn her the trust and confidences of both kings, and made her keenly observant of both royal courts. I’ve always been fascinated by the many differences between France and England, differences that have led the two countries to war so many times throughout history. For me, Louise became the perfect vehicle for describing this conflict in the late 17^th century, and showing the differences between Louis and Charles, their courts, and their cultures. And, more importantly, her life makes such a great, real-life story!

* How much of the novel is based on fact and how much is fiction?
All of the public scenes are historical fact. Royal courts thrive on gossip, and many of the best scandal-mongers of the time, both French and English, kept diaries and wrote letters that have fortunately survived for eager researchers like me. Even the raucous evening where Charles finally claimed Louise’s virginity after a drunken mock-wedding was lasciviously reported by several witnesses. In addition, newspapers and scandal sheets were beginning to raise their tattling heads, and Louise and the king were fair game. As for what exactly took place when the palace doors were shut and Louise and Charles were alone together –– that’s where my imagination took over. It’s an educated imagination, well-stocked with a great many facts from my research, but it’s still imagination. Which is why I write historical fiction rather than history.

* Tell us something surprising about women in 17th century France.
In London, the women involved in Charles’s extramarital intrigues were generally regarded as the king’s whores. No words were minced, not even if the lady were beautiful, rich, and raised to the peerage. Across the Channel in the French court, however, Louis’s chosen mistress was given the official title of maîtresse-en-titre. It was publicly considered a great honor (though likely the catty whispers were less kind), a way of serving king and country, and was rewarded with respect, regard, great wealth, and lavish apartments in the palace. As one court hanger-on declared, “Every [French] woman was born with the ambition to become the King’s favorite.”

* What are you working on next?
My next heroine has already made her appearance in The King’s Favorite as a ten-year-old girl, dancing jigs in the moonlight with Nell Gwyn. Catherine Sedley was the only daughter and heiress to the libertine poet Sir Charles Sedley, and grew into one of the most scandalous ladies of her time. Though her fortune made her much desired as a bride, she refused to marry and let any man take control of her life. Instead she remained independent, becoming mistress to a king, wife to a general, and a countess in her own right, keeping her place at the English court for nearly forty years and through five monarchs. Look for Catherine’s story next summer in The Countess and the King.

Thank you, Susan! And feel free to visit Susan Holloway Scott online for more information about her amazing new novel THE FRENCH MISTRESS.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 5:32 PM

*Your novel, POPE JOAN, explores the life of a controversial figure who may have been the first - and only - female Pope in history. How did you come across Joan's story?
Entirely by accident. I read a passing reference that I originally thought was an amusing typo ("Joan" for "John"--an easy "slip of the pen"). But a few weeks later, I had to drive my daughter to the library for a school assignment. While waiting for her, I had time to kill. Idle curiosity led me over to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, just to check on that odd reference to a "Pope Joan".

I didn't expect to find anything. So imagine my surprise when there was an entry for her! I stood in that library with my jaw dropped open. How was it possible that the story of such a remarkable woman had existed for centuries--and I hadn't even HEARD of her?

I knew immediately that I wanted to write about Joan. I couldn't believe I'd had the enormous good fortune to stumble across this extraordinary story!

*How did you go about researching the novel?
Given your own very well-researched novels, Michelle, I’m sure you know what a tough yet enjoyable process it can be. Historical research starts with easy-to-access sources, readily available in U.S. libraries--sometimes even from inter-library loan! From those, one garners references and bibliography that lead to harder-to-obtain sources available only in rare book rooms and special collections, often in other languages, sometimes in other countries. Fortunately, I can read French, Spanish, Italian, and some Latin, which was an enormous help.

*How much of the novel is based on fact and how much is fiction?
Joan's story is told like those of all the other 8th and 9^th century Popes--in very abbreviated form. Chronicle records in the "Darkest of the Dark Ages" were written with uncertain ink on nubbly animal skin (for that's what parchment is). They were short and woefully lacking in detail. If you plucked one of these papal records off the hand-written page and put it into modern print, it would run about 10-15 pages.

So I had to build from a skeleton of a story. Writing historical fiction allowed me to put flesh on those dry old bones, to give this inspirational story laughter, smiles, tears--all the things that make a story human. I tried, however, always to base my "imaginative leaps" on what might reasonably be inferred from the evidence at hand. The details of the ninth-century setting, strange and savage as they now seem, are all factual.

*Tell us something surprising about women in Rome during the 9^th century.
Women were widely considered to be incapable of reason. It was "unnatural" to teach a woman anything at all--even to read and write. The size of a woman's brain and of her uterus were thought to be "inversely proportionate"--that is, the more a woman learned, the less likely she would ever bear children (if only that were true, birth control would be a snap. You don't want to have a baby? Read a book!).

*What are you working on next?
Right at the moment, I'm very busy promoting the wonderful Three Rivers Press edition of Pope Joan, which was just released on June 9th. It's an entirely new version of the novel, with corrections and additions, a revised and updated Author's Note (with startling new evidence supporting Joan's actual historical existence), and a list of "Best of the Best" reading group questions, gathered from my many years of chatting with book groups all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

I'm also starting to promote the equally wonderful movie version of Pope Joan, which will be released this fall (it's by Constantin Film, the same company that filmed "The Name of the Rose").
Anyone who's ever dreamed of attending a movie premiere will be interested in my unusual "Win a chance to Walk A Red Carpet" offer, which you can see here: http://popejoan.com/2009promo.htm

And I'm also plugging away on my next novel, about another strong woman from history, this time from 17th century France. Perhaps the best way for me to sum up what drew me to Joan and my next heroine is with a quote from George Bernard Shaw:

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people persist in trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable people." (n.b. Shaw actually spoke of "reasonable and unreasonable men", so I tweaked this to make it inclusive of women).

Joan was certainly an "unreasonable" woman (and I mean that as a compliment). So is my next heroine--whose name I have artfully not mentioned (largely because my agent has told me she'll cut out my tongue if I do!). But I hope my readers will enjoy my next heroine's delicious "unreasonableness" as much as I do!

Thank you, Donna! And feel free to visit Donna online for more information about her amazing novel Pope Joan.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 7:07 AM

*Three of your books--Catherine Called Birdy, The Midwife’s Apprentice, and Matilda Bone--are set in medieval England. Why your affinity for this time and place?

My desire to set a book in medieval England began with an idea: what would life be like for young people--especially girls--at a time when they had no power and little value? I chose the time period partly because I love the Middle Ages, with all their excitement and color and brutality, although I am very glad I did not have to live there. But also I saw western civilization, with its growing emphasis on private vs. communal, on self vs. other, on bedrooms and solars and books of manners, paralleling a child’s growth to adolescence, with the same sorts of preoccupations. The idea of a young person living at that time, trying to make sense of her world, appealed to me.

My own fascination has been around for years and years. I started with Anya Seton and Rosemary Sutcliff many years ago and progressed through medieval music, medieval fairs, and collecting things like the 15th century illuminated manuscript page that hangs on my wall. My father’s family is Polish, my mother’s family is German and Irish, so the English were certainly never heroes to either side of the family. But somehow England, especially the England of long ago, spoke to me.

And I think the medieval period is close enough to our own times that I could effectively set a story there. In part it was the fact that I could read most sources without having to learn another language. I couldn’t read early medieval sources in the original, but some, like Bartholomew Anglicus (a 13th century Franciscan monk who created a 19-volume encyclopedia that first made available medical and scientific information from Greek, Jewish and Arab scholars), I could translate from the middle English to modern English, which I never would have been able to do in any other language. It was also because I could imagine myself in medieval England, whereas to think about Medieval Poland or Aztec Mexico was such a stretch. I thought I could come understand these people in Medieval England enough to write about them. I felt a familiarity I wouldn’t have felt lots of other places.

After three medieval and three American books, I returned to England for my new book due out spring 2010. But this time it’s Elizabethan. My interest in the Middle Ages has not waned but I wanted to tell the story of a lame child at a time when ideas about disability and difference were changing and were not, so to speak, so medieval. Hence London, 1574, and Alchemy and Meggy Swann.

* Working from the west coast of the United States, how do you go about finding information sources for life in medieval and Elizabethan England?

When I began, I thought it would be a lot harder than it was. I forgot how long a period the Middle Ages were--hundreds and hundreds of years. And it has been a long time since then. There are innumerable sources. I started out at the University of California, Berkeley, but their sources were scholarly and boring and talked about things I didn’t want to know, like economic and political systems and wars. I wanted to know what people ate and what they sang and where they went to the bathroom. I moved from there to the public library. Once I found a couple of books with bibliographies, I was off and running. With a good bibliography, you’re set.

I found a lot of things reprinted in paperback on the bookstore shelves, such as Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century and A History of Manners. I hounded used bookstores where I discovered books like Daily Living in the Twelfth Century, John Stow’s 16th century Survey of London, and books of slang and saints and insults.

Now, more than ten years since I started researching Catherine Called Birdy, research has changed a lot. For Alchemy and Meggy Swann I used the internet as much as books. The internet is a wonder of resources and information. I found recreations of alchemical laboratories, reproductions of Elizabethan broadsides, and glossaries of Elizabethan words and phrases. And the web has made interlibrary loan a gold mine--I requested and received a 19th century book about Bartlemas Fair, a reprint about English fairs from a 1934 geographic journal, and Disability in Medieval Europe.

* What about young fictional heroines appeals to you as a writer?

Place, personhood, who I am and where do I belong: these are important questions to young women, and to me, which is partly why I write for a young female age group. Their issues and questions are still mine. A consistent theme in my books is finding a sense of place, somewhere to belong, the search for identity, change and becoming, what it means to be human in this world.

All my books are about ordinary girls in extraordinary circumstances, girls like me: the medieval Catherine who had no power and little value in a brutal world; Alyce, The Midwife’s Apprentice, who longed for a name, a full belly, and a place in the world; Lucy Whipple, dragged unhappily across the country from her home in Massachusetts to California because of her mother’s dreams; the lonely, proud, and superior Matilda Bone, raised by a priest to know a lot about Heaven and Hell but not much about this world; Rodzina, a Polish girl from Chicago, who goes west on the orphan train, looking for someone to belong to, and Meggy Swann, different and angry and alone. I know these girls and their concerns and dreams and fears. And so I write about them. And for them.

* Why do you choose to write historical fiction rather than contemporary, possibly more relevant books for your young readers?

The question I am asked most often--aside from “What does Corpus Bones mean?”--is why historical fiction? I think historical fiction helps young readers develop a feeling for a living past, by illustrating the continuity of life, giving them a sense of history and their place in it.

Historical fiction, like all good history, demonstrates how history is made up of the decisions and actions of individuals, and that the future will be made up of

our decisions and actions. British historical novelist Leon Garfield has written: If the young discover that in the past w have been governed, led, abused, and slaughtered by fools and knave, then perhaps they will look about them and see that matters have not greatly changed, and possibly they will do so before they vote. In itself I find that a great reason for writing what I do.

But mostly I write historical fiction because those are the stories that take me over. Rosemary Sutcliff, writer of gorgeous historical novels for young people, said: Historians and teachers, you and your kind can produce the bare bones; I and my kind breathe life into them.....That’s what I’m interested in--the life in those bones.

I’m sure it would be interesting to write a book about somebody in 2009 living in a suburb with a dog and with divorced parents, but the subject doesn’t have the same appeal to me as the idea of someone assisting a medieval bloodletter and getting involved in real blood and guts. I write what’s interesting to me.

*Your medieval books have been published in England. Do you ever feel nervous that you’re an American writing about historical England and releasing your books at the source of the story?

Sure, I do, especially before I went to Britain. Catherine Called Birdy was written before I’d ever been there. I stepped off the plane and said, "Show me Medieval England!" Of course it’s not there. It’s hardly there any more than it is in Ohio. Sometimes I worry the British are going to say, "You’re an American. Why are you writing about England? Or, this is all wrong. We who live here know this." But on the other hand I realize that with all my research and study I know a lot about everyday domestic life of women and children in Medieval England. Any mistake I make is not going to be enormous. People who read my books aren’t looking for mistakes. It’s not like a Ph.D. committee trying to catch you up. The once or twice people have found a mistake, they’ve written very nice letters that were not critical but just pointed out errors. I’m grateful for it. I haven’t had a bad experience, so I don’t expect another one. But, I could hear from a leech.

Thank you Kamran! And feel free to visit Karen Cushman online for more information about her wonderful books!

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 12:53 AM

*Your novel, TWILIGHT OF AVALON, tells the famous story of Trystan and Isolde. What drew you to this period in history?
In the spring of 2007, I woke up from a very vivid dream in which I was telling my mother about a plan to write a novel about the daughter of Modred (or Mordred), great villain of the cycle of King Arthur tales. I'd been an English major in college with a focus on Medieval literature, and had fallen in love with the Arthurian legends then. So when I woke up, the idea just wouldn't let me go. I started to do some preliminary research, reading several books that explored the historical foundations of the Arthur myths.

The Arthurian legends as we know them today, with their knights in shining armor, jousts, tournaments, and the tragic love story of Lancelot and Gwenevere, are very much products of a later Medieval courtly chivalric world. But Arthur, if he existed at all, would have been a 5th-century British warlord, a far cry from the king of Cammelot as he appears in the tales. The 5th-century was a brutal, chaotic time in Britain. Roman Britain had crumbled; Rome's legions had been withdrawn from this far-flung outpost of the empire, leaving the country prey to invading Pictish and Irish tribes from the west and north and to Saxon invasions from the east. It was in many ways also a crucible in which the British identity and sense of place was forged and formed. And it is against this backdrop that Arthur appears, a war hero who led--or at least may have led--a victorious campaign against the invaders, driving them back for perhaps the space of a man's lifetime and so inspiring the roots of a legend that still captures our imaginations today.

I was fascinated by this possibility of a real King Arthur, and fascinated by the world in which he might have lived. So I decided to set my story there, to make my particular Arthurian world a blend of the earliest versions I could find of the legends and what scraps of historical fact we know of Dark Age Britain.

*How much of TWILIGHT OF AVALON is based on fact, and how much is fiction?
As I mentioned above, while I was doing research for Twilight of Avalon, I read several fascinating books that explore the possibility of a real-life historic Arthur. But it really is only that--a possibility.

Very, very little can be discovered or said with any certainty about who the man himself might have been. And at the same time, although I'd decided to set my story far from the legendary Cammelot at a time a real Arthur might have lived, I felt as though there were certain conventions of the later Arthur legends that I wanted to pay tribute to and honor.

I decided to base my Arthur on one of the earliest tellings of the Arthur story: that recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his History of the Kings of Britain, written in the mid twelfth-century. In this version, the now famous Gwenevere-Lancelot-Arthur love triangle does not exist; in fact, Lancelot is not yet even present as one of Arthur’s fighting men. Instead, it is Modred, Arthur’s heir, who betrays the king by seizing both Gwenevere and the throne. I used this version of the story as the backdrop for Twilight of Avalon and at the same time tried to place it in a world that was as authentic as possible a representation of what Dark Age Britain might have been.

The historical basis for the characters of Trystan and Marche is even more scant than that for a historical Arthur: the single true piece of evidence for their existence is a memorial stone in Cornwall with the inscription: Drustans hic iacet Cunomori filius, which means, “Drustanus lies here, the son of Cunomorus.” Many scholars have plausibly suggested that the characters referred to are the Tristan and King Mark of later medeival tales, Drustanus being a recognized variant of the name Tristan (or Trystan) and Cunomorus being the Latinized version of the name Cynvawr, who is identified by the ninth-century historian Nennias with King Mark (or March or Marche).

In terms of the other characters, I used the names of the Saxon kings who would likely have been ruling the kingdoms of Kent and Wessex at the time, and my Madoc of Gwynedd is based on the historical sixth-century King Maelgwn Gwynedd, who was indeed a leading king of the age and whom the 6th-century historian Gildas identifies as "Dragon of the Isle." Myrddin (Merlin) may indeed have been a famed Welsh Bard. Apart from these, though, Twilight of Avalon’s Britain is a a blending of legend and truth, an attempt to portray the historical world of sixth-century Cornwall, while still honoring the legends that are, after centuries of telling and re-telling, as real as historical fact

*The story you tell of Tystan and Isolde is very different (and much better, if I may say so!) from the one most people have read. Why is that?
Well, first of all, thank you! As I mentioned above, the Arthurian canon as we know it today is very much grounded in a courtly, chivalric, later Medieval world--and as one of the later additions to the cycle of Arthur stories, this is particularly true of the legend of Trystan and Isolde, with its tragic love triangle that echoes the more famous Arthur-Gwenevere-Lancelot one. And in many ways, also, the story becomes a bit of a Christian morality play. (Which to be honest I think is a disservice to the characters of Trystan and Isolde, whom I loved from my first encounter with them). And yet the Trystan and Isolde story, like the Arthur one, has its roots in earlier legends and traditions. As I was doing research, I started to wonder what those earliest traditions might have been, what the story might have looked like at its first inception during the chaos and violence of Dark Age Britain, the "real" Arthurian age. Twilight of Avalon is my attempt to create a story that both fit my Dark Age setting and might credibly have been told and retold, adapted and changed through the ages to eventually become the Trystan and Isolde story as we know it today.

*Tell us something surprising about women's lives in 6th century England.
Women during the 6th-century actually had greater legal rights than later during the Middle Ages.

The Welsh laws of Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) were written in the 10th-century, but are assumed to be much older, and are far more liberal in their attitude toward women than those the Catholic Church would be instrumental in instituting later on. Under Hywel Dda's laws, for example, if a woman found her husband with another woman, she was entitled to a payment of six score pence the first time and a pound the second time; on the third occasion she was entitled to divorce him.

*What are you working on next?
Twilight of Avalon is the first of a trilogy, so at the time of writing I've completed the second book of the trilogy, Dark Moon of Avalon, and am at work on the third, Sunrise of Avalon. I'm about 3/4 of the way finished with it. And with a new baby--our second--due in August, I have a good self-imposed deadline to get it done!

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 3:08 PM

*Your novel, MOTHER OF BELIEVERS, tells the story of Aisha, who married the leader Muhammad and eventually became a leader herself. What drew you to this period in history?
As a practicing Muslim, I have always been fascinated by the stories around the birth of Islam. This was the defining period that shaped Muslim civilization, much like the Exodus is a pivotal historical period for Jews and the ministry of Jesus is for Christians. But unlike the earlier religions in the monotheistic family, Islam was born in the full light of history. The amount of historical data around Prophet Muhammad, his family and followers is staggering. We know facts as minute as how the Prophet tied his shoes and how he ate, along with surprisingly intimate details of his life with his wives. Much of this is due to Aisha, the Prophet’s youngest and most beloved wife, who is the central hero of MOTHER OF THE BELIEVERS. She transmitted over 2,000 historical accounts about her life with the Prophet and the early Muslim community, providing a wealth of detail that created an embarrassment of riches when I was researching the book. In fact, the challenge was trying to get in as much historical detail as I could while keeping the novel to a readable length. Had I followed my original story outline, the book would have been over 1,000 pages, and my publisher would probably have fainted. I had to drop many chapters I loved in order to make it more manageable. Still, the first draft came in at over 700 pages, and it took more painful editing until I got it down to a little over 500 pages. But as a result it is a better book. It’s tighter, and manages to convey the epic nature of the origins of Islam while still retaining an intimate feel.

*How much of MOTHER OF BELIEVERS is based on fact, and how much is fiction?
I state in my foreword that my novel is a work of fiction, as I wanted to make it clear that I am not claiming to present a textbook of Islamic history. Still, I tried to stay within the framework of the major historical events, partly due to my affinity for the underlying history as a Muslim, and partly because when it comes to the events I recount, truth is more remarkable than fiction. The birth of Islam is one of the most improbable and majestic moments in human history, filled with surprise twists and incredibly complex characters motivated by faith, passion, love and revenge. It is such an amazing tale that I really couldn’t “improve” on it with my creative imagination. The main area I allowed myself to indulge in speculation was in looking inside the hearts and minds of the characters, trying to imagine what they were thinking and feeling, what motivated them to take the actions that have been recorded by history. It is in that arena that my novel might generate some controversy, but my interpretations regarding the thoughts and motivations of these historical figures are well within the analysis of Muslim historians. There is really nothing in my book that cannot be found in the opinions of traditional scholars, although the choices I make might surprise some readers. In some ways, the book represents my own personal interpretation of Islamic history as a believer. I synthesized the world as my heart saw it. Perhaps we all do that every day when we look not only at the past, but also at our own lives and try to make sense of it all. The novel is written as a memoir, and I think all memory is a creative act. We remember events not necessarily as they were, but as they fit into our image of ourselves. So, in that sense, I think everyone is living a life that is historical fiction.

*Tell us about women's lives in 7th century Arabia.
Prior to the rise of Islam, women had a very difficult time in Arabia. It was a brutal wilderness with no central authority and a “kill or be killed” mindset that led the strong to prey on the weak. Women suffered tremendously, with no guaranteed rights, since there was no legal code. Arab men regularly performed female infanticide, burying unwanted baby girls alive in the desert. Kidnapping and rape were commonplace, and many women survived through prostitution. Although a few women had the protection of wealthy clans and were able to become prosperous businesswomen in the trading cities like Mecca, for most women pre-Islamic Arabia was a miserable environment. Islam in many ways began as a proto-feminist movement meant to alleviate the suffering of women and children in this chaotic world. Prophet Muhammad was himself an orphan and had grown up in poverty in Arabia after his mother died when he was six. He personally experienced the misery of life for the poor and the weak in the old system and he was very sensitive to the suffering of the less fortunate. And when the Prophet embarked on his mission to bring the Arabs to monotheism, his initial followers came primarily from that impoverished underclass. Women in particular were drawn to his new religion, as he banned female infanticide and started promulgating laws meant to make their lives easier. Muslim women secured the right own property and inherit from the beginning, rights that were not granted Christian women in Europe and America until the 19th century. The Prophet also worked to limit the pre-Islamic custom of polygamy and emphasized that multiple marriages should be undertaken primarily to help poor widows and orphans who needed the security of a family unit. These were remarkable reforms and Arab women flocked to the Islamic movement, which was finally bringing law and order to a barbaric world. And Muslim women continued to play major roles in every aspect of life in the Islamic community. Aisha, the Prophet’s wife and the main character of MOTHER OF THE BELIEVERS, is a remarkable example of an empowered Muslim woman. She was a scholar, a poet, a political leader, and a warrior who led armies into battle. In modern times, many Muslim feminists look back to her example as they fight for their own rights in the Islamic world. Unfortunately, Islam has gotten a bad rap as a misogynistic religion in the modern day, which is ironic considering that it began as a movement meant to liberate women and make their lives easier. But issues of sexism and oppression of Muslim women are very real today, and I hope that my novel will remind people of that liberating spark that is the heart of Islam. I hope that I can remind Muslim men and women what Islam stood for at its beginning and inspire believers to follow the best that is within the Islamic historical tradition.

*How did you go about researching your novel?
I looked at a large collection of historical sources that have been translated into English. I don’t speak Arabic and I had to rely on translations of early Arabic works by Muslim scholars. Thankfully, many of the most important sources have indeed been translated into English and provided a rich level of detail into the world in which Islam was born. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of historical information that is available on Prophet Muhammad is staggering, and the difficult part was not in finding material from which to write a novel, but in picking and choosing which stories to weave into the narrative. At the end of the day, I chose accounts that moved me emotionally, and I hope my love for these stories is evident to the reader of my MOTHER OF THE BELIEVERS.

*What are you working on next?
My next book, SHADOW OF THE SWORDS, is a historical novel on the Crusades. The tale follows the battle between King Richard the Lionheart and the Muslim sultan Saladin for control of Jerusalem. But at its heart, it is a love story with a young Jewish girl at the center who serves as a spy during the conflict. In many ways, I think the book will intrigue many people as it looks at what the Holy Land means to all three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it looks at how the human heart can find love and beauty even in the midst of war and death. I think that SHADOW OF THE SWORDS asks some very profound questions about the nature of religious faith and human conflict, and is in some ways a direct analogy to some of the events happening in the Holy Land today. But it is ultimately a story of hope, reflecting my own desire to see reconciliation one day between all the Children of Abraham.






Thank you Kamran! And feel free to visit Kamran Pasha online for more information about his amazing new novel Mother of Believers.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 7:28 PM

What prompted you to begin a trilogy set in a small town during WWII?
It is said that men who fought in WWII never talk about their experiences; it certainly seemed to me that we didn’t hear a lot from the women who were caught up in that whirlwind either. Now, just as we are losing both the men and the women of that era at a rate faster than the war killed them, it is important that we not forget them. They endured rationing, separation, and wildly off-base expectations, such as winning the war and remaining chaste. Do we really know who our parents cared about before they married each other, what became of them, and, in the end, how we came to be who we are?

As for the small town, the icon of the home-front is Rosie the Riveter; the fact is that the US was still very rural and, except for those in the military or those who moved to work in the war factories, most Americans still had not traveled more than 50 miles from home. Very few rural Americans became Rosie the Riveter.

Your novel, French Letters -- Virginia’s War: Tierra Texas 1944, is set Stateside during the war. How did you research WWII Texas?
There is a tremendous amount of pure information about the Office of Price Administration (rationing), aircraft factories, military air fields, crops, census, that sort of thing in the source records. The color of ration stamps for what foods or goods, wooden sidewalks, what was on the grocery store shelves and what kind of medical treatment an old-school doctor could provide in the 1940’s, the text of the announcement broadcast in the middle of the night about the invasion of France – that kind of information is out there.

But the people – that required hard work, to get the sense of how they spoke to and about one another, slang, their daily lives – that took work. I spoke with dozens of people who grew up in that era and in small towns, looked at photographs and read snippets of their letters and four-page newspapers.

How much of the novel is based on fact and how much on fiction?
Tierra is fictitious. Virginia, Will, Poppy, all of the people are fictitious. Their stories in the novel are fictitious. But, the background to their lives and their town graded out with early readers as close to one hundred per cent factual. If in the novel a certain color ration stamp was sought for a certain food at a certain date, it is correct. Passing references to events such as freakish rainstorms, the kind of planes that flew from air bases in Lubbock and Clovis, where B-25 bombers were manufactured, how one might covet Lucky Strikes or a pair of shoes, those bits are on the money.

Tell us something surprising about the American young women that our soliders left behind during WWII?
One of the most disgraceful things a girl could do in a small town, worse even than rumored un-chastity, was to send a Dear John letter. It was expected that all girls were good girls who would wait for the soldiers they sent off to war. The fact is before they were our mothers and grandmothers, they were us. They had the same passions, inexperience, uncertainty, and naughtiness that we had when we were teens and twenties. They did not have the freedom we had – unequal pay, peremptory dismissal to give a man the same job, an expectation that a man was the head of the family and not to be challenged, and a very unequal set of rules for intimacy. There were no birth control pills and it was hard to argue that contraceptives were for anything other than sin. Even so, the soldiers who sowed a statistically staggering amount of wild oats, particularly in England during WWII, came home to discover that some of their pastures had been plowed in their absence.

What are you working on next?
Virginia’s War is the novel of a young woman who was expected to wait for her soldier, Will, who was sent off as an army doctor to the war in Europe. I am working on the sequel, the novel of that army doctor, in France. The stories mirror one another.

Thank you Jack! And feel free to visit Jack Woodvile London online for more information about his latest novel French Letters, Book I: Virginia's War, Tierra Texas 1944.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 8:30 AM

Thank you David! And feel free to visit David H. Jones for more information about Two Brothers.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 4:29 AM

* In your latest novel, THE KING'S GRACE, you tell the story of Grace Plantagenet, who thus far has only been a footnote in history. What compelled you to tell her story?
Grace Plantagenet's name jumped out at me after reading about Queen Elizabeth Woodville's death while researching "A Rose for the Crown." She was mentioned in a contemporary chronicle as one of two gentlewomen who accompanied the queen's body on the funeral barge from London to Windsor, where Elizabeth was buried with her husband, King Edward IV. The actual verbiage is: "Grace, bastard daughter of King Edward, ..." and I wondered why a bastard of her dead husband would have been anywhere near Elizabeth, let alone have the singular honor of being one of the mourners on the barge. It sparked an interest in exploring a possible relationship between the two. That is all we know about Grace--that one fact, so I had to make up her backstory, her age, and what happened to her. It was fun. I also was looking for the perfect narrator at the court who could tell the compelling, mysterious tale of Perkin Warbeck. As "A Rose for the Crown" told the story of King Richard III through Kate Haute's eyes, "The Kings Grace" is really about Perkin Warbeck, although Grace herself is a lovely young woman who readers will care about.

* Tell us something surprising about life as a woman in 15th century England.
Women were obviously second class citizens, dependent upon a man for everything economic, but they were also given lots of responsibilities when their men were away fighting or elevating themselves at court. Most noble women ran the households at those times and men under them did their bidding. It was only when England stopped going to war so much, in later Tudor times and on, that women started becoming more subservient. Some medieval women even donned armor and fought alongside their men in defending their castles. I liked that about them. They were less namby pamby than in later periods.

* How much of your novel is based on fact, and how much on fiction?
I think I explained above how much of Grace's story is fiction, BUT every event that happens around Grace as with every character who is not fictional has been thoroughly researched and is authentic. From the time Perkin is caught and brought to Henry VII's court, I am faithful to history as it deals with him.

* How did you go about researching THE KING'S GRACE?
The same way any historical novelist does it! Read, read, read, go and look, look, look and gather as much information as will fit in your filing cabinet or on your bookshelves! It's a lot of work to get the history right, the people right, the clothes right, the food right, the lifestyle right, the weather right, the flora and fauna right, etc. etc. It makes me tired just thinking about it!

* What are you working on next?
Since I finished "The King's Grace" in May and in between editing that book through September, I have been researching the life of Cecily of York, wife of Richard, duke of York, who were the parents of Edward IV, Richard III and Margaret of Burgundy. The manuscript is due in January 2010.

Thank you Anne! And feel free to visit Anne Easter Smith online for more information about her latest novel The King's Grace.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 8:28 AM

* In your historical trilogy, beginning with the novel THE WHITE MARE, you take readers back to the first century AD. What was it about ancient Scotland that fascinated you enough to make it the setting of an historical series?
Few historical authors had tackled Scotland in that era, so it was uncharted territory. Also, people had a view of England being a Roman province, but not many people knew that the Romans invaded Scotland many times, ultimately unsuccessfully. So choosing Scotland gave me an exciting plot framework - the well-oiled and heartless Roman war machine rolling over the mystical, sacred land of the ancient Scots, which they defend to the death. Battles, ambushes, rescues, danger, dramatic partings and reunions were easily spun from that background! Aside from the storytelling, Scotland is a spiritual home for me; I was entranced with its wild landscape on my first visit. It's at the dangerous, unknown borders of everything, and that has always appealed to me - the edge of the known world at the time; the modern edge of Europe, jutting into the stormy Atlantic; and the borders of the unseen, or Celtic Otherworld. On a ghostly day, when the mountains or islands disappear into mist, you can believe in anything.

* Your latest novel, THE SWAN MAIDEN, signals a departure from your Dalriada trilogy, and tells the story of Deirdre, an Irish legend. What was it about the legend of Deirdre that captivated you?
This is the story of star-crossed lovers separated by a cruel world, a theme of which humans are so enamoured it has echoed down the ages in the tales of Romeo and Juliet, Helen and Paris of Troy, Tristan and Isolde, and Guinevere and Lancelot. We are transfixed by the idea that a love could be so strong that a couple would defy all the rules of family and society to pursue it; that they would give up belonging, safety and status, revelling only in each other, unable to be separated even by death. It’s that defiance against those who would seek to destroy us that sits at the heart of so many great stories, I think.

As far as tragedies go, this is also the “big one”. It has all the elements that make up the most riveting adventures — escapes and chases, battles and near-misses, and terrible twists of fate. More than that, it encapsulates the most rousing of human emotions: the wonder of unbreakable love, the sorrow of betrayal and death, and the excitement of great acts of courage and sacrifice. People first made up stories to be recited around a fire on a stormy night, and the best have the “ooh” and “aah” factor as the audience is thrilled and dismayed in turn. Deirdre is a great ooh and aah tale.

The more authorial reason is that the Irish myths set in the pagan Iron Age were originally oral, and only written down much later by monks when Christianity and medieval society had brought in a new world-view. The Irish heroines are often portrayed as manipulative seductresses bringing destruction and death to men, and there is an implied derision at and fear of their sexuality and innate power. I was therefore intrigued by the idea of “resurrecting” the maligned Deirdre and imagining what she might have been like. Deirdre, in my book, is a free-thinking, rather wild soul who in running away tries to break the shackles of her male-dominated society, only to be sucked back in again, of course. To me, this makes her a modern heroine with whom the women of today can identify.

* How much of THE SWAN MAIDEN is based on fact and how much is fiction?
The plot, being based on an original myth, is entirely fiction. Outside the myths, which survive in fragments of early manuscripts, there is no evidence the characters existed. The stories were originally passed on orally by bards, and not written down until the 12th century, so scholars have also questioned whether they can reflect anything of the pagan Iron Age a thousand years earlier, or whether they only present what Ireland was like in early medieval times. However, many of the traditions are supported by archaeology and historical sources. The tales portray a warrior society immersed in battle and cattle raids, who ride around on horses or in chariots, boasting, drinking and feasting, taking enemy heads as cult objects and being devoted to the honorable notion of single combat of champions. The nobility are obsessed with appearance, wearing flashy clothes and jewelry, and decorating their horses, houses and everything they could get their hands on. They worshipped many gods, had priests called druids, and venerated natural places such as springs and rivers. Caesar and other Roman writers attest that the Gauls and British tribes did conform to most of these stereotypes. In many cases archaeology backs them up. Chariots, ritual horse burials and gaudy horse-harness fittings have been found widely in Britain and on the Continent. Valuable drinking vessels, tableware and deposits of animal bones support the feasting aspects, and the many finds of ornate jewelry and weapons confirm their love of decoration, adornment, and war. Statues, reliefs and bone evidence show they did worship the cult of the head. There is evidence for their named gods from other areas of the Celtic world, and in many places, including Ireland, ritual objects of gold and bronze are often found as offerings in marshes, springs and rivers.

* How did you do your research for the novel, given that the story is based on Irish mythology?
I used the same research as for my Dalriada trilogy, set in ancient Scotland, to paint the everyday background and lifestyles of the Celts. I also sought out information on Iron Age Ireland and what particular jewelry and swords they had there, for example. I used other ideas, too, such as evidence from bog bodies and other archaeological sites in Ireland. For example, the excavations of the royal site of Emain Macha, now known as Navan fort, unearthed information about the destruction of a great sacred building, which I use in the second book. Other tidbits are interesting, too, such as the fact the skull of a Barbary Ape from North Africa was found there, in a supposedly far-flung place isolated from the Roman world. My king now has a pet monkey. Oh, and my most favorite factoid ever: the body of a warrior found preserved in an Irish bog had hair stiffened with a paste made from pine resin and herbs. Pollen studies showed it came from continental Europe - so the men were importing luxury hair gel!

* What are you working on next?
I am tackling another much-maligned female from the Irish myths - Queen Maeve, or Medb. She is portrayed, rather juicily, as a war-mongering nymphomaniac, whose bloodlust ignites the great Irish battle The Tain, or Cattle Raid of Cooley. The Tain leads to the death of many brave heroes and the destruction of whole provinces, and all this is laid at poor Maeve's feet. I am not retelling her myths (of which there are many) but "re-imagining" what she truly could have been behind the lurid headlines, as it were. Of course, being Celtic myths, the Otherworld and the sidhe, the immortal inhabitants of Ireland, are also wound through the romance and action.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 8:31 AM

*In your latest novel, MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, you explore an aspect of William Shakespeare’s life that no other historical fiction writer has delved into. What fascinated you about William’s love affair with Anne Whateley?
Other writers have used Anne Whateley in two dramas I know of, but no one—as far as I can find—has written her story in a historical novel. However, the “other Anne” theory has had its scholarly champions over the years. Proof of Anne’s deep involvement in Will Shakespeare’s life hangs mostly on the fact that an Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton is recorded in a still extant marriage bond as betrothed to Will previous to the entry that he would wed Anne Hathaway of Stratford. (My website www.karenharperauthor.com has more on this, including a link to the marriage bonds, which are in Latin.)

Also, I see Anne W’s footprints other places in Shakespeare’s life. In his will, he left Anne H. his “second best bed,” and there has been much discussion over the years about who got the first best bed. Also, Shakespeare arranged for a friend to inherit the Blackfriar’s Gatehouse where he lived in his heyday in London—in other words, neither it nor its profits went to Anne H. And who was the Dark Lady of his sonnets and the inspiration for many of his feisty, bright female characters? I love writing mysteries and detective stories, and in this case, clues point to “Will’s other wife” having a great impact on his life.

Let me emphasize that I think Anne W. would see herself as Shakespeare’s wife and not just his mistress. They might well have married secretly. In that era, of course, the word mistress meant Mrs. or wife, not only lover or kept woman.

But to your question—everything fascinated me about Anne Whateley. If people can argue about what Will did in his “lost early years” and even whether or not he really wrote the plays, let them take a look at my novel and then argue Anne Whateley.

*How much of MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE is based on fact and how much is fiction?
Nothing that is known of William Shakespeare’s life or times has been fictionalized, although, as in all historical fiction, scenes and dialogue are created. Also, since little is known of Anne W’s life and background—but much can be surmised—I did have to fill in blanks in her life. If Shakespeare himself, with all the research scholars have done on him over the years, has some mystery years in his biography, a lesser known historical character like Anne could be expected to also. In a way, as in all historical fiction, MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE is what Alex Haley, the writer of ROOTS, dubbed ‘faction.’

*Tell us something surprising about women in 15^th century England.
Let me broaden this a bit to what surprised me in general. Although Queen Elizabeth’s true desire was to let each man’s religious conscience be his own private matter, because of her advisors (and the Catholics who hated and wanted to assassinate her), England grew to be quite a police state. My research revealed how closely the queen’s government tried to censor writers, especially the popular playwrights of the day. If some stepped out of line—like Christopher Marlowe (a flamboyant character in this book) or like Will himself—they could be fined, imprisoned, or worse. I think Shakespeare’s genius and popularity with the queen (and in this book, Anne herself) saved his hide more than once.

*How did you go about researching Anne Whateley’s life?
Mostly through researching Shakespeare and his times, but I also read everything I could find about her village of Temple Grafton near Stratford. I researched the Whateley families who lived in the area. And, nothing like research trips to England! I’ve been to the British Isles to research various Tudor-era sites numerous times, including to Stratford. I’ve been an Elizabethan scholar for years, teaching Brit Lit, especially Shakespeare’s plays. My Masters Thesis was on the dark comedy All’s Well That Ends Well. My office walls are lined with books on Shakespeare and his era; I have three framed portraits of the queen herself staring at me right now. I’ve written other novels on the era, including THE LAST BOLEYN and a nine-book mystery series called THE QUEEN ELIZABETH I MYSTERIES. In short, I’m not only a crazed Anglophile but an “Elizabethanophile.”

*What are you working on next?
I’m sure this will come as a surprise—I just completed a historical novel set in Elizabethan England! The tentative title for this is MY LIFE WITH THE TUDORS. It is the fictional biography of Katherine Ashley, who was governess (and foster mother) to Elizabeth Tudor, but had quite a life of her own. As with Anne Whateley’s story, there are blank passages in her life, including who her parents were, so she also makes a wonderful character on which to hang a book. Kat, as Elizabeth always called her, lived an exciting, dangerous life intertwined with the Tudor family, including King Henry VIII, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Jane Seymour, King Edward VI, Queen Katherine Parr, Queen Mary I and, of course, Queen Elizabeth herself. What a cast of characters!

Thank you Karen! And feel free to visit Karen Harper online for more information about her latest novel Mistress Shakespeare.

# Posted by Michelle Moran @ | 6:24 PM