Release day of A Matter of Time: Henry VIII, the Dying of the LIght

 

I am thrilled and relieved to see the third and final book in my Henrician Trilogy launched today. I have spent four years in Henry's company.

Those of you who write will know that characters encroach on your real life and with Henry, it was sometimes quite difficult to deal with. I had to keep taking breaks from the harrowing tale I was telling and to have him follow was disconcerting, to say the least. He is so much larger, louder and more dangerous than anyone else I've written about, and so much more real.

Written in the first person, Henry's narrative is not always as honest as it could be. He blames others, makes excuses and sometimes just refuses to co-operate. I persuaded him to open up in the end though. I found an angry man, a vindictive man and also a man who is terribly sorry for himself.

But then, he does have much to be sorry about; there is nothing harder to deal with than self-loathing.

A Matter of Time, Henry VIII, the Dying of the Light traces Henry's final years, his last three marriages, his wars, his disappointments, his pain, his failure, both as man and king. Written from his perspective, the story reads very differently to that of his wives. I haven't whitewashed him but I have given him the chance to speak.

Available on Kindle, and in Paperback

mybook.to/amoc

mybook.to/amofaith

mybook.to/amot

Delighted to welcome Amy Maroney with news of her new book, The Queen's Scribe

 

 

The Queen’s Scribe 

by 

Amy Maroney

Queen Charlotta of Cyprus, a forgotten monarch

 While researching the Sea and Stone Chronicles, a collection of novels about ordinary people living under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller in medieval Rhodes, I stumbled across a woman of power whose story captivated me. Her name was Queen Charlotta, and she ruled the Kingdom of Cyprus for a moment in time during the exact era of my research. 

Just what the Kingdom of Cyprus was, I had no idea. So, like any overzealous historical novelist, I dove down an exhilarating research rabbit hole in search of more details.

I was astonished by my findings. The Kingdom of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia (the latter two designations were purely titular) was ruled by the French Lusignan dynasty for hundreds of years. Its zenith came in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By 1458, when the fifteen-year-old, widowed Queen Charlotta ascended the throne, the Lusignan dynasty was hobbled by war and debt, and poisoned from within by corruption and betrayal. 

Queen Charlotta therefore faced a formidable set of complications when she donned her crown. She not only accepted the challenge, she exhibited tremendous ambition and courage. Less than two years after taking the throne, she moved her courtiers to the seaside fortress of Kyrenia, where they survived a massive siege by her power-hungry half-brother, Jacco. Then, when her second husband Louis of Savoy proved a weak leader, she left him in Cyprus and sailed around the Mediterranean entreating allies to help save her crown. 

Clearly, this courageous queen’s story had to be told. So I resolved to bring her to life with a novel, The Queen’s Scribe.

KYRENIA FORTRESS, WHERE QUEEN CHARLOTTA RESISTED A SIEGE BY HER HALF-BROTHER

Though her father, King Jean, was a Frenchman born into the Lusignan dynasty, Charlotta’s mother, Eleni Palaiologina, was a proud Greek woman who defied the “Latin” influence of her husband’s court. Charlotta grew up a Greek girl in her mother’s apartments, and never learned much French. 

But when Charlotta was married to Prince João of Portugal at fourteen, she was suddenly required to communicate in French (their common language). Her need for trusted interpreters would only grew stronger as time went on and she was forced to seek assistance from Western allies such as the Knights Hospitaller, the Pope, and the king of France. This is how I developed the concept of a fictional heroine serving the queen as a skilled interpreter and scribe. 

ST. HILARION CASTLE, WHERE THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF CYPRUS RETREATED FOR LEISURETIME PURSUITS

After the 1457 murder of her husband, Prince João, Charlotta faced a new betrothal. This time, her fiancé was her first cousin, Louis of Savoy. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, the marriage of first cousins doomed the bride and groom to hell. Charlotta’s mother naturally opposed the union. But as soon as she died, the marriage was on. 

Fortune’s wheel turned again when King Jean died just a few months after his wife (whether it was due to natural causes or poison was a matter of dispute). Teenaged Charlotta ascended the throne, her father’s council members whispering in her ear just as they had done with her father. Meanwhile, her half-brother, Jacco, vowed he would seize the kingdom. His plan: gain the favor of the Sultan of Egypt, raise an army, and attack Cyprus. Charlotta would spend the rest of her life fighting to preserve her throne.

I chose to tell Queen Charlotta’s tale through the eyes of fictional Estelle de Montavon, daughter of a French falconer. I first wrote a story starring her in an anthology a few years ago, and she plays a minor role in my novel Island of Gold. 

In The Queen’s Scribe, Estelle—a talented scribe and linguist—becomes as valuable as gold when the royal court retreats to Kyrenia Fortress and civil war looms between the queen and Jacco. As Queen Charlotta voyages across the Mediterranean Sea beseeching French-speaking allies for help, Estelle is at her side, witnessing every triumph and disaster along the way. 

MURAL OF A WEALTHY FIFTEENTH CENTURY FAMILY IN A CYPRUS CHURCH, WHICH SHOWS HOW PEOPLE DRESSED IN THAT TIME AND PLACE

This extraordinary queen’s ambition and courage burned brightly, but all too briefly. Like so many other women who deserve a place in history books, her story has been relegated to the shadows. I hope that The Queen’s Scribe plays a role in bringing Charlotta of Lusignan’s story back into the light.

Amy Maroney studied English Literature at Boston University and worked for many years as a writer and editor of nonfiction. She lives in Oregon, U.S.A. with her family. When she’s not diving down research rabbit holes, she enjoys hiking, dancing, traveling, and reading. Amy is the author of The Miramonde Series, an award-winning historical fiction trilogy about a Renaissance-era female artist and the modern-day scholar on her trail. Her new historical suspense series, Sea and Stone Chronicles, is set in medieval Rhodes and Cyprus.

The Queen’s Scribe is on Kindle Unlimited and is available worldwide from Amazon: https://mybook.to/QueensScribe

Social Media Links:

Website: https://www.amymaroney.com/

Twitter: twitter.com/wilaroney

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amymaroneyauthor

Instagram: www.instagram.com/amymaroneywrites/

Thorne Moore joins us with news of a new release!

I am a big fan of Thorne Moore, and always wait in anticipation between publications so I am delighted to learn of her latest novel. Welcome to the page, Thorne, tell us all about your new one! 

Adam Winters is killed by a drunk driver. His devastated widow, Nicki, realises she is being stalked.

Offered an escape to a cottage by the sea, she and her daughter Willow arrive on the Pembrokeshire coast.

They settle into the community. But are drawn into troubles they have driven two hundred and fifty miles to avoid: family deceptions, jealousies, lies, a disappearance and a suspected killing.

Struggling to find peace with the past and truth in the present, Nicki discovers there is more than one sort of fatal collision"

Fatal Collision is a story about a woman, Nicki Bryce, trying to come to terms with the loss of her husband, killed by a drunk driver. Her agony is exacerbated by the refusal of the driver to admit his own guilt, which means that Nicki has to wait for months for the case to come to trial. The drunk driver, Denis Anderson, is clearly guilty, and Nicki is left to wonder how she would want him to be punished. Hanged, drawn and quartered? Boiled in oil? Imprisoned for life? Whatever punishment is meted out, it won’t bring her husband back. He will still be dead, those dear to him will still be grieving, and the culprit’s family will have been derailed too. What Nicki really wants is for Anderson to acknowledge his responsibility and tell the truth.

Is truth a more effective form of justice than the sort administered by the courts? Nicki comes to think so. Punishment does nothing except spread the pain further. It doesn’t heal people who are already hurting, but maybe truth and understanding will do better. Others have thought the same. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa put acknowledgement of the truth above punishment as a response to the ending of apartheid. It rather depends on whether we think of justice as providing revenge or restitution. At least the truth will serve some purpose when other forms of justice fail. Dr Mengele, whose crimes were unspeakable in Nazi Germany, escaped any form of justice, and probably never felt any remorse, but the detailed truth of what he did is out there, ensuring his name will be reviled forever.

In Fatal Collision, Nicki’s crusade for truth leads her to try and solve mysteries haunting other people. Will they be better off knowing the truth, or will it only hurt? Ignorance is supposed to be bliss, but sometimes the not knowing is a never-ending nightmare. She just wants to help, but she doesn’t always realise what she’s getting into. Dabbling in other people’s lives can be a dangerous business.

Nicki lives in Hertfordshire, but most of the book is set in Pembrokeshire, on the northern coast, in the area where I live. She moves there temporarily with her daughter Willow, in order to get away from the scene of her own tragedy. I can’t think of a better place to come, but of course the people who belong there are every bit as liable to tragedy and trauma as anyone else, as she soon discovers.

Fatal Collision is out now in Kindle and paperback, published by Diamond Crime, available HERE  

Thorne was born in Luton and graduated from Aberystwyth University (history) and from the Open University (Law). She set up a restaurant with her sister and made miniature furniture for collectors. She lives in Pembrokeshire, which forms a background for much of her writing, as does Luton.

She writes psychological mysteries, or "domestic noir," exploring the reason for crimes and their consequences, rather than the details of the crimes themselves. and her first novel, "A Time For Silence," was published by Honno in 2012, with its prequel, "The Covenant," published in 2020. "Motherlove" and "The Unravelling" were also published by Honno. "Shadows," published by Lume, is set in an old mansion in Pembrokeshire and is paired with "Long Shadows," also published by Lume, which explains the history and mysteries of the same old house. She's a member of Crime Cymru. Her latest crime novel, "Fatal Collision is published by Diamond Crime (2022)

She also writes Science Fiction, including "Inside Out" (2021) and "Making Waves" (2022)

Thorne's author page   Blog  FB Author page  Twitter: 

Introducing Len Maynard and his fabulous book: A Dangerous Life (DCI Jack Callum Mysteries Book 2)

 A Dangerous Life 

(DCI Jack Callum Mysteries Book 2)

By Len Maynard

Len Maynard was born in Enfield, North London in 1953, he has written and published over forty books, the majority of them in collaboration with Michael Sims. Ghost story collections, the Department 18 series of supernatural thrillers, stand-alone horror novels, the Bahamas series of action-adventure thrillers, as well as a handful of stand-alone thrillers. As editors they were responsible for the Enigmatic Tales and Darkness Rising series of anthologies, as well as single anthologies in the horror and crime genres. The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries are his first to be written under his own name.

Blurb

1959

A body of a man wearing theatrical make up is found hanging from a tree on Norton Common in Hertfordshire. He has been tortured and his throat has been cut.

DCI Jack Callum, a veteran policeman with his own rules for procedure, heads the investigation into this puzzling crime. The clues lead him close to the answer, but the solution remains elusive.

Why was the man killed?

What were the victim’s links to London’s gangland bosses?

When an unsolved murder is uncovered that appears to be connected to the case, Jack realises he must use his team to their full strength to separate the innocent from the guilty.

Jack also faces a challenge he never expected as he is accused of an improper relationship with a young Detective Constable on his team, Myra Banks.

In a breathless climax, Myra puts her own life on the line to deal with a figure from Jack’s past, who has now become a lethal threat in the present.

An excerpt from A Dangerous Life (DCI Jack Cullum Mysteries Book 2)

TUESDAY MARCH 17TH 1959

“…So it’s important you remember these three simple rules. One, don’t talk to strangers. Two, never go off with anyone you do not know personally, and three, remember that the police are your friends. We are here to listen and help you whenever we can.” Jack Callum looked up from his notes on the dais at the rows of faces staring back at him with expressions of total apathy.

Cynthia Arnold, the school’s headmistress, sprung to her feet and walked to the front of the stage.

“Very informative,” she said. “I’m sure, School, that you would like to show your appreciation to Chief Inspector Callum for giving up his valuable time to speak to you today.” She started a round of applause that rippled listlessly around the assembly hall and quickly died. “Now, if you could all make your way out, in an orderly fashion, to the playground, where…” She looked down at the piece of paper clutched in her hand. “Where Sergeant Grant and Constable Cooper will explain to you how you can stay safe on our roads.”

There was a hubbub of grumbling voices and shuffling feet as the hall gradually emptied.

“Thank you for that, Mr. Callum,” the headmistress said. “I’m sure your words found a receptive audience.”

“Well, those that stayed awake for long enough might have learned something,” Jack said as he folded his speech and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket. “And can I apologise again that Superintendent Lane couldn’t be here today.”

The headmistress clucked her tongue. “Never to worry,” she said. “I’m sure it couldn’t be helped. In any case, you proved to be a very successful last minute substitution. Full marks.”

“You’re very kind.”

The truth was that Henry Lane had been trying to wheedle his way out of this speaking engagement for weeks. More comfortable swinging a golf club than standing in front of a microphone, a last-minute attack of laryngitis meant that Jack had to take his place, much to his own chagrin. He enjoyed public speaking even less than Lane.

“Well, excuse me,” the headmistress said. “I hear your men have brought a police car along with them to help with their demonstration. I have to see. It’s all rather exciting.”

Jack watched her bustle, excitedly, out of the hall, and then made his way to the side of the stage and the short staircase to freedom.

He trotted down the stairs and pulled up short when a voice spoke from out of the shadows. “Did you mean it?”

Someone was standing a few feet away, hidden by a fold in the curtain.

“Did I mean what?” he said, and a teenage girl stepped out from behind the folded brocade and stood in front of him.

“That the police were our friends and that we should come and talk to you, and you will help?”

Jack smiled indulgently. “We’ll always listen and help if we can…sorry I didn’t catch your name.”

“Gerry…Geraldine Turner.”

“Well, Geraldine, do you have a problem you wish to discuss?”

The girl looked tearful. She nodded, a lock of her curly blonde hair falling out from beneath her Alice band and dropping down over her face. “It’s my brother,” she said.

“Well, what is it you want to tell me about your brother?”

“He’s dead,” she said, biting at her lip pensively. “I killed him.”

“I’m sorry that your time has been so cruelly wasted, Chief Inspector,” the headmistress said. “But our Miss Turner is one of Hatfield County School’s greatest fantasists.”

“So she’s done this kind of thing before?” Jack said quietly, glancing across at Geraldine who sat in the corner of the office, biting her lip pensively and staring down at her shoes, doing her best to avoid meeting his eyes.

“With almost monotonous regularity,” the headmistress said tiredly.

Jack continued to stare at the girl. He couldn’t shake the feeling that, by involving the headmistress, he had betrayed Geraldine’s trust in the most profound way, but he’d had no choice. Being alone in the office with a thirteen-year-old girl would have been seen by most as dangerously inappropriate.

“Still, the school secretary has been in touch with her father and Mr. Turner is on his way in now to take her home. He shouldn’t be long. They live in a lovely house called Elsinore, on the Broadway in Letchworth,” the headmistress said with a smile, gazing wistfully over Jack’s shoulder, through the window to the playground where his junior officers were putting the black Wolseley through its paces, demonstrating stopping times to an audience of bored schoolchildren.

Jack, keeping his voice low, said, “And as far as you’re aware Geraldine doesn’t have, or has never had, a brother?”

The headmistress shook her head. “In our records we have her down as an only child. I’m afraid, Mr. Callum, that teenage girls have a great capacity for making up stories.”

“I have two teenage daughters myself,” Jack said, finding the headmistress’s condescending attitude towards her charges irritating.

“Then I don’t need to tell you, do I?” she said. “You don’t have to stay, you know. I’m sure I can deal with Mr. Turner when he gets here.”

“I’ll hang on. I’d like a few words with him. Besides, I have to wait for my men to finish the demonstration. Sergeant Grant is my lift back to the station.”

“I see,” the headmistress said and, dropping all pretence, stood up, walked to the window and stared out at the car as it performed an elaborate skid on the playground’s tarmac surface. Jack would have to have a quiet word with Constable Cooper about his tendency to showboat. 

“Ooh,” she said. “It really is quite exciting.”

Jack went across and sat down on a hard chair next to Geraldine. Apart from her initial pronouncement that she had killed her brother, the girl had said nothing more to him.

“Are you all right, Geraldine?”

“I told you, it’s Gerry,” the girl said without looking at him.

“Sorry, Gerry. Are you feeling okay now?”

Geraldine finally turned her head, a look of contempt in her eyes. “You’re just like the rest of them,” she said. “I trusted you.”

Her words cut deep, increasing the feeling that he’d betrayed her.

Buy Links: Amazon UK • Amazon US

Connect with Len:

Website •  Website “The DCI Jack Callum Mysteries” • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook