New release: DAY OF FIRE, A Novel of Pompeii

I'm proud to host a release day for A DAY OF FIRE: A Novel of Pompeii by bestselling authors Stephanie Dray, Ben Kane, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Kate Quinn, and others.

At the height of the Roman Empire, the lively resort of Pompeii flourished in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. When Vesuvius unexpectedly erupted in a terrifying explosion of flame and ash, the entire town was destroyed. Some of its citizens perished in the chaos, others escaped the mountain's wrath. These are their stories:

• A boy who loses his innocence
• An heiress in dread of her wedding day
• An ex-legionary staking his entire future on a gladiator bout
• A crippled senator waiting for death, until a tomboy rescues him
• A young mother facing an impossible choice
• A priestess and a whore seeking redemption and resurrection

Through these characters, six authors acclaimed for their historical authenticity bring to vivid life the overlapping fates of patricians and slaves, warriors and politicians, villains and heroes, who cross each others' path during Pompeii's fiery end. Who will escape? And who will be buried for eternity?

"An emotional roller-coaster that educates while it entertains."-- Parmenion Books

"Full of suspense, fear, and unexpected bravery." --Ageless Pages

"Each one of these authors deserves a huge amount of praise for putting this impressive piece of art together." --Steven McKay

To find out more, please visit here.

Meet the Authors:

STEPHANIE DRAY is a multi-published, award-winning author of historical women’s fiction and fantasy set in the ancient world. Her Nile series about Cleopatra’s daughter has been translated into more than six languages, was nominated for a RITA Award and won the Golden Leaf. Stephanie is a former lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher.

BEN KANE worked as a veterinarian for sixteen years, until his love of ancient history drew him to write fast-paced novels about Roman military life and gladiators. He is the author of seven books, the last five of which have been Sunday Times Top Ten bestsellers in the UK. Ben’s work has been translated into ten languages. In 2013 and 2014, dressed in full Roman military kit, he and and a group of fellow authors walked the length of Hadrian’s Wall, as well as over 130 miles in Italy, for charity, raising over $50,000.

E. KNIGHT is an award-winning, national best-selling indie author. Under the name Eliza Knight, she writes historical romance and time-travel. Her debut historical fiction novel, My Lady Viper, has received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Historical Novel Society 2015 Annual Indie Award. 

SOPHIE PERINOT is the author of the acclaimed debut, The Sister Queens, about medieval sisters Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence. She holds a BA in History and a law degree. Her most recent novel about Marguerite of Valois, daughter of Catherine de Medici, was recently acquired by St Martin's Press.

KATE QUINN is the national bestselling author of the Empress of Rome novels, and two novels about the Borgia pope's mistress, The Serpent and The Pearl, and The Lion and The Rose. Her books have been translated into thirteen languages. She first got hooked on Roman history while watching "I, Claudius" at the age of seven, and wrote her first book during her college freshman year.

VICKY ALVEAR SHECTER is the award-winning author of the YA novel, Cleopatra’s Moon, based on the life of Cleopatra's daughter. She is also the author of two biographies for kids on Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. Her young adult novel. Pompeii, Curses and Smoke, was released in June 2014. She has two other upcoming books for young readers. Vicky is a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta.

THE TUDOR VENDETTA releases on Tuesday, October 21

Fall is an exciting time in publishing, as we near the holiday season and many of us escape the stress of shopping and parties by curling up with a book. I'm delighted to announce that The Tudor Vendetta, my third and final book in The Elizabeth I Spymaster Trilogy (Elizabeth's Spymaster in the UK) will be released by St Martin's Press in the US on October 21 and by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK on October 23, with several foreign-language editions scheduled to follow.

It is November, 1558. Elizabeth I has claimed the throne, but the first days of her reign are already fraught with turmoil, the realm weakened by strife and her ability to rule uncertain. When Brendan Prescott, her intimate spy, returns to court at her behest, he soon finds himself thrust into a deadly gambit against his foe, Robert Dudley. But the new queen has an even more perilous assignation for him when her trusted lady-in-waiting, Lady Parry, vanishes in Yorkshire. Sent from court to a crumbling manor that may hold the key to Lady Parry's disappearance, Brendan becomes the quarry of an elusive stranger with a vendetta - one that could expose both Brendan's secret and a long-hidden mystery that will bring about Elizabeth's doom.

Booklist calls The Tudor Vendetta "action-packed palace intrigue at its best" and Romantic Times praises its evocation of "Elizabeth's England in all its glory." I've loved taking this journey into Tudor England, which began nearly fourteen years ago when I first had the idea to write about a fictional squire with a secret past, who finds himself plunged into momentous events preceding the reign of the Tudor dynasty's most accomplished and enigmatic sovereign. The Spymaster Trilogy is as much about Elizabeth's early struggles and canny ability to wield power even when she had none, as it is about the young man who devotes himself to her service, risking everything to see her triumph. Exploring many vibrant personalities of the time - William Cecil, Francis Walsingham, Robert Dudley, and Mary I - as well as Brendan's fictional friends and foes has been a true delight. I hope you enjoy this final installment as much as I have writing it, and I thank you from my heart for your support and enthusiasm during this three-volume adventure into England's tumultuous Renaissance past. 

I'll be on virtual tour for The Tudor Vendetta from October 20 to November 28. To catch up with me, please click here.

WHEN AUTHORS SAY STUPID THINGS

I'm no stranger to putting my foot in my mouth on occasion. As a published writer, the demands on me, like all my ilk, have increased exponentially with the advent of social media. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are now required tools in a writer's arsenal, where we're expected to post interesting quips and book announcements on a regular basis, regardless of our ability to even hold a coherent conversation in public, let alone our willingness to do so.

It may seem strange to the rest of the non-writing world, but publishers actually audit our social media and website presence. This incipient intrusion into how we present ourselves is now an integral part of our publishing strategy; I've heard twice now during marketing discussions that my website has been "audited" and been offered suggestions as to how to improve it. Publishers don't do this to frustrate or irritate us; in fact, they have the best of intentions. Media attention has become inescapable, fundamental to any author who wishes to survive. As marketing budgets shrink and books compete amid a smorgasbord of other entertainment options, writers must keep up, expected now to not only entertain with words in their books, but also with their extraneous minutia.

It can therefore come as no surprise that like everyone else out there posting kittens, skateboard videos, pictures of recent vacations, and memes declaring everything from political affiliation to sexual preference and religious belief, authors can now and then find themselves screwing up. After all, we've all seen our share of "OMG!!! No, he didn't!" on non-writing people's posts. We've all cringed at that celebrity's faux-pas on Twitter or that politician's asinine comment on Facebook. No one is immune. We all put our foot in our mouths - or in our posts, as the case may be. And in this day and age of intense social scrutiny and viral spread, when we do, everyone else notices.

Writers are, by and large, a solitary breed. We have to be. It's not a choice; it's an occupational hazard most of us embrace. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard, "What a life you lead, sitting at home all day making up stories," I'd be sitting at home on my yacht in Cannes. People think we are privileged - and we are, because we get paid to make up stuff - but the day-to-day grind is hardly glamorous. Unless your idea of glamour is endless months of toil over a keyboard, trying to wrestle into words that brilliant idea in your head; eating pretty much the same sandwich every day, and looking up in a red-eyed haze at 5:30 when your partner comes home from work and comments, wryly, "No shower yet?" or the obsessive checking on the ranking of your most recent opus at various online sites, followed by crippling doubt when said ranking fails to hit the single digits and you know you're headed on the bullet train to failure and that day-job in a fast-food chain. Glamour has no part in it. To be a writer, you must have buns of steel to keep them glued to the chair every day and an excellent exercise regimen to avoid permanent carpal tunnel. We hunker down in our dens like mole people because that's where our stories are born. We eschew social outings that other folk spontaneously engage in - impromptu lunches or jaunts to the movies - because we're "under deadline," but more honestly, because we live in constant dread that if we deviate too much from the work-in-progress, the muse will desert us and then we'll really be on that train to fast-food hell. We don't mean to hide from the world, but we must. If we didn't, we'd never write another word. The world is too tempting. There is too much distraction, too many reasons to avoid the screen or page, and skip outside to play like a normal person.

But now, we are expected - no, required - to have a public presence. The more savvy among us elect to create an alternate persona that exalts our best qualities while concealing our less amenable ones. Because while readers may want to meet us, to exchange confidences, praise or criticism, they shouldn't know too much. It's not healthy or wise to show the world who we are in our entirety, because like every other industry that relies on another person's imagination and investment, writers need to disappear when someone is reading our book.

Which brings me in my long-winded way to the point of this post. Having watched in slack-jawed horror the debacle caused by bestselling author John Grisham's insensitive remarks during a recent interview, where he extolled his opinions of old white men who watch child porn and the unnecessary harshness of their jail sentences, I realized this is a perfect case of writer's foot-in-mouth. As rich and popular as Mr. Grisham is, and a lawyer to boot, so he really should have known better, he's still a writer. He doesn't get out much, or at least not as much as he probably should. He might actually believe what he said (writers are under no requirement to be pleasant, though it would behoove them to at least try) or he might have been handed a microphone and completely lost it. Whatever the case, he screwed up. Within hours, his mini-rant went viral; his Facebook and twitter accounts flooded with outraged remarks and avowals to boycott him evermore. His hard-working publicist no doubt had to flee to the nearest bathroom stall to hurl up his or her lunch before launching into full damage-control mode, because, you see, Mr. Grisham has a book dropping next week and well . . . to behave like a cretin at such a time is simply not done.

Will it affect his book's sales? I doubt it. In today's age of burn-fast-and-forget-it, by next week some other author, celebrity, or politician will utter a string of garbage and the blast of the white-hot spotlight will swerve on them. After all, Orson Scott-Card's unabashed cretinishness hasn't exactly hurt him, though the producers of the film made from his bestselling novel went to certain lengths to distance themselves from his racist, homophobic stance. Still, he has survived, and to my knowledge, his book sales have not taken a significant hit.

The simple truth is, most writers aren't designed for the world. We're built like special cars, fueled by the power of our visions, with high mileage in our particular neighborhood but poor efficiency on the highway, necessitating frequent coffee re-fills and fortifying pep-talks from our agents. We're not supposed to be touted into the arena to regale the public, because while we may be interesting in our own right, most of what we want to say, or should say, is in our books.

Then of course, there is that undeniable alternative: Some writers are not nice. They're rude, self-absorbed people whose opinions make 98% of the rest of the planet shudder. They are the dangerous ones, the feral in our breed, because you never know when they're let out of their den if they'll smile at you or bite.

So, publishers beware.

Random Reviews: SAVAGE GIRL

Jean Zimmerman. SAVAGE GIRL.

The premise of Jean Zimmerman's Savage Girl is gripping: What would happen if a wealthy couple with everything they could possibly imagine came across a so-called "feral child" in a tawdry Nevada sideshow and decides to bring her back to New York and convert her into a society belle? With shades of Pygmalion crossed with the darker hue of Edith Wharton, Savage Girl posits this theory and adds another layer: What if all the men who show an erotic interest in the girl start to turn up dead and the disturbed son of the wealthy couple begins to suspect she may be a brutal killer, even as he sees disturbing signs within himself that he might be to blame?

There is no question that Ms Zimmerman is a masterful writer; her prose is beautiful and she brilliantly captures the unreliable voice of the couple's son, Hugo Delegate, who narrates the story. Hugo is both repelled and fascinated by Bronwyn, the "savage girl," whose past is slowly revealed as Hugo's suspicions and attraction to her deepen. The world of Gilded Age New York also comes to vivid, detailed life; we feel the hypocrisy and emphasis on lineage and social position as the curiosity-obsessed Delegates seek to put one over on their peers by turning Bronwyn into something she is not. Bronwyn fascinates in her contradictions - alluring yet remote, with a tendency to slip out after-hours to roam the streets, wearing a glove fitted with claws. However, her distance from the narrative voice and Hugo's preoccupation with a variety of other concerns dampen the plot's thrust, as he's distracted both by his own torment and his family's foibles. At times, there simply is too much story in this heady brew, diluting the lethal mystery at its heart.

Nevertheless, the experience of reading it turns compulsive, as the underside of the Gilded Age is torn asunder by the introduction of the wild within us all - a metaphor for how we seek to curb our baser instincts, forcing our repressions to find other, more unsavory ways to erupt. Hugo's confession turns chilling as we realize how far his family has gone and the terrible price exacted of them, while Bronwyn's own secrets lead to an excellent denouement. In the end, we find ourselves questioning: Who is truly the savage here?

Random Reviews: HOTEL DE DREAM

I read voraciously and have been writing reviews for years, both on Goodreads, for Amazon Vine, and the Historical Novels Review. So, I decided to start a Random Review feature here on my blog where I'll offer select reviews of books I personally enjoyed. Most have a historical component, of course. Hope you enjoy!

Edmund White. HOTEL DE DREAM.

Edmund White is rightfully considered one of our finest living English-language writers, though his output is not as prolific as others in his cadre. Nevertheless, he has carved an indelible mark for himself in portraying both gay life and history in his works, his prose always luminous and his insights into the foibles of the human condition often profound.

In his deceptively slim novel, Hotel de Dream, Mr White re-imagines the final days of American literary phenomenon Stephen Crane, who is wasting away from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-eight. Acclaimed posthumously for his work, Crane was only a one-hit wonder in his lifetime; and as he slowly suffocates from his illness, he labors to dictate his final novel - a strange, elegiac tale of a boy prostitute in 1890s New York and the staid, married banker whose obsessive love for the boy precipitates his own downfall. Woven in between scenes of Crane and his work-in-progress is the story of how Crane himself met a similar boy years before and how that fateful encounter haunts him still.

Portraits of Henry James and other literary luminaries pepper the pages - the depiction of pompous and reluctantly proper James is startlingly amusing - and balancing it all could prove exhausting, not to mention cumbersome, in the hands of a lesser writer. But Mr White commands his triple narrative with consummate style, giving his moribund protagonist a mordant wit that makes light of his dire circumstances, even as Crane reflects on the swift-fire passage of time and depths of passion to which we can descend, as exemplified by the boy's doomed suitor.

This is a brilliantly executed novel, brimming with respect for our flawed humanity. White's portrayal of the boy himself is masterful - a jaded youth of the streets who retains only a semblance of innocence yet remains utterly naive to the vicissitudes he unleashes. Likewise, White's evocation of the morals of a bygone era and stark class disparities in New York, where the wealthy rub elbows with the downtrodden and destitute, is vividly rendered, but never ponderous.

If you read only one work by Edmund White - and you should read more - let it be this one

Guest post from Eva Stachniak, author of EMPRESS OF THE NIGHT

I'm delighted to welcome Eva Stachniak, author of EMPRESS OF THE NIGHT: A Novel of Catherine the Great, the follow-up to her international bestseller, The Winter Palace.

I loved The Winter Palace, which recounts Catherine's tumultuous struggles through the eyes of a trusted servant with secrets of her own. In Empress of the Night, Eva returns to the grandiose, turbulent and dramatic life of Russia's most famous empress, now in the twilight of her long reign, as she is dying from a massive stroke and recalls the twists and turns, sacrifices and intrigues, that brought her to the throne. Catherine is a magnificent woman, but prey to capricious appetites and a hunger for power; and her trajectory from neglected foreign princess to czarina of the one of the most expansive and decaying empires of the world offers an astonishing, compelling look at the vagaries of fate.

Eva's work has been highly praised by readers and critics alike for her luminous prose and insight. Library Journal calls Empress of the Night "historical fiction fans will appreciate . . . this personal account of a formidable and, indeed, infamous ruler." and Book Reporter says, "As the reader, you’re left with an intimate, up-close look at the imagined life of Catherine the Great. It is, quite simply, wonderful."

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Eva, who offers us this tantalizing glimpse into her inspiration behind the novel. To find out more about Eva and her work, please visit her website.

Ever since I decided to write about Catherine the Great, I knew that I couldn’t write just one novel about her; she was too big, too complex, her story involved too many people and too many key events. It was always a two book project. In The Winter Palace the readers watched Catherine through the eyes of Varvara, Catherine’s spy and confidante who was clearly captivated by her mistress, and thus not always reliable as a narrator. Empress of the Night turns its spotlight on Catherine herself.

           

Empress of the Night is a study of Catherine’s character. The novel begins in November of 1796, when Catherine is 67 years old and succumbs to a massive stroke. In the two days that follow, speechless and motionless, the most powerful woman in Russia is forced to witness how the intricate threads of her palace politics unravel around her. Her legacy, her plans for Russia’s future, the very fate of the monarchy are in danger. Grand Duke Paul, Catherine’s son, the man whom she grew to despise, is getting ready to assume control over the imperial court and Russia’s sprawling lands. He feels he no longer has to hide his hatred of everything his dying mother represents. After all he’ll soon become Emperor Paul II, the absolute monarch of All the Russias, answering only to God. 

As a writer, I was drawn to the image of once powerful Catherine the Great facing her limitations, her powerlessness, her mortality. I wondered how much the historical Catherine understood from what was happening around her in these last two days and nights before her death, what she thought of the events that led her to this pivotal and tragic November morning when she felt the first pangs of pain. Of course we’ll never know how massive her stroke really was, how much consciousness she retained and for how long. One witness of these last two days and nights in the imperial bedroom recorded that Catherine tried to speak once. She lifted herself up a little, her lips moved, her throat produced some strange noises. In the end, all the dying empress managed was to grab her attendant’s hand and squeeze it.

This—I thought—was a commanding image. I took it for a permission to imagine that Catherine understood far more than those around her gave her credit for and began writing Empress of the Night.

           

  

Guest post from Laurel Corona, author of THE MAPMAKER'S DAUGHTER

I'm delighted to welcome Laurel Corona, a friend and colleague whose latest novel THE MAPMAKER'S DAUGHTER is now available. Set in 15th-century Spain, this beautiful and vivid novel explores the forgotten women of the Spanish Inquisition, as seen through the eyes of Amalia Riba, a converso forced to hide her religion from the outside world, She is the last in a long line of Jewish mapmakers, whose services to the court were so valuable that their religion had been tolerated by Muslims and Christians alike.

But times have changed. When King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella conquer Granada, the last holdout of Muslim rule in Spain, they issue an order expelling all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. As Amalia looks back on her eventful life, we witness history in the making—the bustling court of Henry the Navigator, great discoveries in science and art, the fall of Muslim Granada, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. And we watch as Amalia decides whether to relinquish what’s left of her true self, or risk her life preserving it. This is a sweeping saga of faith, family and identity that shows how the past shapes our map of life.

Please join me in welcoming Laurel Corona, who offers us this interesting perspective on the famous Henry the Navigator.

Henry the Navigator and his “Gay Company”

When I was in grade school I always thought Henry the Navigator was the coolest figure in the Age of Exploration, but there were a number of things my teachers didn’t share, or didn’t know, about him. He was the first to kidnap Africans for economic gain and and bring them as slaves to Europe. He also never navigated, staying on dry land the entire time his ships went off to discover the world.  And one last thing: he was almost certainly gay. Researching Henry for my new novel, THE MAPMAKER’S DAUGHTER, I ran across an early historian who said that the prince “spent his whole life in pure chastity, and went to his grave as a virgin.” Another said that "he did not wish to marry because of his great chastity." A third added that "he always lived so virtuously and chastely that he never knew a woman."

Of course “chaste” does not equal gay, so let’s dig a little further.

What might his brother, King Duarte, have meant when he wrote Henry to say he should avoid "giving pleasure to men" beyond what he could do in a "virtuous manner"? What does one contemporaneous historian mean when he describes Henry’s household as “habituated to the gay and spontaneous company of his servants,” adding that, “he was very attached to them”? This archaic use of the word “gay” always brings a smile to modern lips, but the point about Henry’s preferences is not contained in that word.

What does it mean that most of those Henry gave the chance to conduct highly lucrative slave raids in West Africa were young men raised from youth in his "câmara"? When his early biographers used this word, its most common meaning was bedroom, or by extension the private quarters of his palace, where it is apparent from the sources that many young men (and never a woman) were free to come and go in a manner befitting a prince’s most intimate friends.

In The Mapmaker's Daughter, Diogo Marques is one of Henry’s handsome young favorites who subsequently receives a commission to go slaving.  My protagonist Amalia, not yet in her teens when she goes to Henry’s court with her father, wonders about this absence of females in the palace.  Though later she will pay for her naivete, at the time she simply grumbles that if there were women around, someone might notice she had outgrown her clothes.

  

Biographers during his lifetime and the century afterward tiptoed delicately around the subject of Henry’s personal life for good reason.  Sodomy was a grievous sin and a crime punishable by death.  To make the heinousness even clearer, after execution (or as a means of it) the body of the accused had to be so thoroughly destroyed by fire that no trace remained.  It was common to exhume the dead to desecrate their bodies if offenses of this and other sorts were discovered later.  Obvious, honesty both during and after Henry’s lifetime was not consistent with building him into the national hero of Portugal, so biographers kept their silence. 

And then there’s very phallic personal crest Henry designed, which would raise the eyebrows of anyone who has ever heard of Freud. It seems there is much more to Henry than the well-dressed prince looking to sea with a model ship in his hand.

Thank you, Laurel. To find out more about Laurel and her work, please visit her website.

Interview with C.J. Samson, author of DOMINION

I'm honored and delighted to welcome C.J. Sansom, whose new novel DOMINION is now out in the UK and the US. An international bestselling author who is well known for his Matthew Shardlake mysteries set in Tudor England. C.J. is also the author of the evocative bestseller, Winter In Madrid, set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and is one of my favorite novels about that tumultuous and tragic period.

In his latest novel, Dominion, C.J. offers a chillingly realistic portrayal of alternate history, positing what might have happened had the Third Reich invaded and conquered the UK. Set in 1952, twelve years have passed since Britain has surrendered to Nazi Germany and the British people find themselves under increasingly authoritarian rule. But Churchill’s Resistance is not vanquished and as the defiance grows, whispers circulate of a secret that could alter the balance of the global struggle. The keeper of that secret is Scientist Frank Muncaster, who languishes in a Birmingham mental hospital.

Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, a spy for the Resistance and University friend of Frank’s, is given the mission to rescue Frank. Hard on his heels is Gestapo agent, Gunther Hoth, a brilliant and implacable hunter of men, who soon has Frank and David’s wife, Sarah, in his sights. This is a spellbinding novel in the vein of Graham Greene that dares to explore how in moments of crisis, history can turn on the decisions of a few brave men and women – the secrets they choose to keep and the bonds they share. 

Please join me in welcoming C.J. Sansom.

Please could you tell us about your inspiration for writing Dominion.

Everyone who studies history seriously considers counter-factuals – if a particular event, or decision, had gone differently, what would the effects on history have been.  And of course one intriguing theme is, what would have happened if Britain had been defeated or surrendered in 1940.

 What drew you to the particular era that your book depicts?  What are some of the challenges and/or delights about writing about this time?

As well as the Tudor era, I have always been very interested in European and British history before, during and after the Second World War, and Winter in Madrid is also set within this broad period.  Dominion, is setting in Britain in 1952, the year I was born.  Although it is an alternate history and many things are different, I try to catch the atmosphere of 1950s Britain in such things as the general drabness, the intense social conservatism, but also the importance of personal integrity as epitomised in characters like David and Sarah.  It was very interesting to create characters rooted in a time which I can just remember, as well as little details like the fact that everybody smoked, and it was routine for dogs to do their business in the street!  One of the challenges, which I would have had even writing about the real world rather than on alternate history, is that events and political figures are still, just, within range of memory, as are the political ideas.  I knew I would get criticism for my portrayal of how some political figures and political parties respond to defeat, but I believe these to be plausible, or would not have protrude as I have.

You are very well-known for your Shardlake mysteries set in Tutor England, as well as a previous novel set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Winter in Madrid.  What promises did you use to transport yourself (and readers) to another time period?  How do you go about research and incorporating it into fiction?

That is the $64,000 question for a historical novelist.  I am fortunate in that I am a historical nerd, and have spent much of the last forty years reading and thinking about history.  I don't have the knowledge of a professional academic, but think I am fairly well-rooted in the mid-sixteenth and mid-twentieth centuries.  Whenever I have chosen the exact topic I'm going to write about, I always research the particular subject as carefully as I can, including looking at original documentation from the period wherever possible.  This takes 2 to 3 months and I'm sure that much of each novel is written in my subconscious during that time.  Then when I write, I always try to strike that essential balance between burdening the reader with a mass of historical facts, and giving the flavour of the time.  That's the key thing, having the character and stories integrated with "the world of the piece."

 Do you believe your historical fiction conveys a message or theme relevant to our world today?  If so, what do you think it is?  If not, how do you think readers can find common ground with the characters in your story?

Everyone, I think, who writes historical novels – or, for that matter, factual books, does so from the perspective of their own time.  I don't think there is such a thing as a general "message" or "theme" in historical fiction – everyone writes from the point of view of their own ideas, conscious or unconscious.  I am sure my own books reflect my own position on the democratic left.  The only book where I have deliberately conveyed a message is Dominion, where the message is how easy, and how dangerous it is to fall into politics defined by nationalism.  As for common ground with the characters, their to a difficult balance has to be drawn, between someone intelligible to the modern world but with the different mindset of another time.  This is much easier for the 1940s than the 1540s!

Can you tell us about your next project?

I am going back to Tudor England and the Shardlake series, with a book called Lamentation which will be set around the jockeying for power between religious and political factions at the court of the dying Henry VIII, and which will prominently feature his last wife, Catherine Parr.  It will be the last in the series set during the reign of Henry VIII, but I hope to to continue it under his successors.

Thank you, C.J. To learn more about C.J. and his work, please visit his website. C.J. is also on virtual tour through the blog world until March 14.

UK release for THE TUDOR CONSPIRACY

THE TUDOR CONSPIRACY releases today in the UK. To celebrate the book's release, I will be on a virtual blog tour from January 16 to January 28. Hope you can join me! I'll update these links as the tour progresses.

January 16 - For Winter Nights. Review and Q&A.

January 17. Sir Reads a Lot. Review.

January 18. Reading Gives Me Wings. Q&A.

January 19. Life Between Pages. Review.

January 20. A Fantastical Librarian. Q&A.

January 20. Kincavel Corner. Review and Q&A

January 22. Historical Honey.

Named one of Daily Soap's Top 7 Reads

January 23. SJA Turney's Blog of Random Miscellany.

January 24. Parmenion Books.