New Release Coming Soon!

First, an apology. Every day I get emails asking if I am still writing and when the next book will be published. I am writing, it just takes me longer these days. My body doesn't like sitting, my brain is slower and I have to check and recheck every detail. The good news is that my next book. Marguerite: Hell Hath no fury - the story of Marguerite of Anjou is complete, and currently with the editor. That means the end is in sight. I will be setting up a pre-order soon.

I don't think I have read a book, fiction or  otherwise, in which Marguerite is shown in a good light. That is because she is one of history's losers. When her husband, King Henry VI, became mentally ill and unable to rule, she saw it as her duty to step into his shoes. The English lords had other ideas, they disliked her not just because she was a woman but because she was French. England had been at war with France for hundred years but the glory years under Henry V were long over, the country was impoverished yet still men were dying for a war already lost. The union between Henry and Marguerite was part of a peace treaty - a lull in the fighting while the opposing parties worked  out their differences but the English blamed Marguerite for the loss of French territories and viewed her as a spy. 

Marguerite came from a family of strong women, her mother and grandmother both ruled in their husband's stead while their men were otherwise engaged. She had a nose for politics, spoke out when other women kept silent and influenced the king on matters of state. None of these things won Marguerite friends in England. The Duke of York in particular did his utmost to undermine her, even before the king fell ill.

As Henry's heir the last thing he wanted was for Marguerite to prove an adept leader, he was even less enthusiastic for her to produce an heir. So when Marguerite announced her pregnancy shortly after the king was struck with his strange malaise, a rumour began that the child she was carrying was fathered by Edmund Beaufort. You don't have to look far to discern the perpetrator of this rumour.

Without giving away too much of the plot, the dissent between the queen and the Duke of York escalated into a prolonged civil war; a war that lasted for four decades, costing an estimated 30 -38,000 deaths in some of English history's bloodiest battles.

Marguerite's hopes were finally extinguished at Tewkesbury where seventeen year old son, Edward of Lancaster, perished in battle. During the course of the war, Marguerite's power was usurped, her king imprisoned, her son disinherited; she was exiled, slandered and finally beaten but she never gave up until her son was killed and she had nothing left to fight for.

Had circumstances been different of course, she would be lauded as a hero but instead  has been remembered in history as a she-wolf and an adulteress. Modern authors have taken their cue from Shakespeare who pulled no punches when he described as a “Foreigner, white devil, shrew, virago, vengeful fury” and demonised her as  “a foul wrinkled witch’ and a ‘hateful withered hag.” 

As always when I write, I try to stand back and let the protagonist tell their own story. Recorded events remain the same but the perspective alters. Just as Henry VIII in The Henrician Chronicles made his actions plausible, and Margaret Beaufort made it quite clear that she had nothing to o with the deaths of Edward IV's sons, Marguerite turns her own reputation on its head.

She makes bad decision, she takes drastic action but she reminds us that she was slandered, her crown was stolen, her son disinherited and the ruling king, Henry VI murdered. 

She is not without guilt but her crimes were no less than those of York but they were not greater either. In Marguerite: Hell Hath no Fury, the queen emerges as a woman who would do all in her power to protect her son - just as any mother would.

Blurb

Marguerite: Queen of England

From the moment Henry VI's new queen, Marguerite of Anjou, sets foot on English soil she is despised by the English as a foreigner, and blamed for the failures of the hundred years war in France.

 Her enemies impede her role as the king’s consort and when Henry sinks into apparent madness her bid to become regent is rejected. Marguerite must fight, not only for her own position but to maintain Henry’s possession of the crown. 

The ambitious Duke, Richard of York seizes control of the country, thrusting Marguerite aside and inflating the mutual hatred between the houses of York and Lancaster. But the queen refuses to relinquish power and fights determinedly for the rights of her son, Edward of Lancaster.

The long and bitter civil conflict, that has come to be known as the war of the roses, commences.