Cas Peace in the Spotlight

Before I begin, I would like to thank my friend and fellow author, Judith Arnopp for hosting me on her blog. We both appreciate how hard it is to find people who might be interested in reading our respective novels, so I value any opportunity to reach out to a potential new audience.

I’d like to think that I might find some new readers among Judith’s blog followers, despite that fact that my genre is fantasy, not historical fiction. Many of us read multiple genres, after all, and historical fiction and drama—more specifically the medieval, Dark Ages and eras beyond—have always fascinated me. I love reading about the Saxon and Roman periods, and am always attracted by characters such as Boudicca and King Arthur, and the many influential leaders who no doubt contributed to the myths and legends surrounding their times. It was this allure, I suspect, plus my own love of fantasy novels, that first led me to try my hand at writing.

I never intended to be an author, though. My initial scribblings were mainly to relieve boredom and stress, and later to satisfy a need for the kind of story I just couldn’t find among the shelves of my local bookstore. These were the days before the Internet made finding good novels easy, and before budding writers could find knowledgeable help and advice simply by posting a comment on Facebook. Oh – if only I’d known then what I know now! I made so many mistakes when I first started writing, and even more when I was finally convinced that my story could be good enough to submit to an agent. I’d have saved precious cash too, as I was far too trusting and naive. I would never have believed that an agent could abscond with someone’s reading fee (yes – I did once pay a reading fee. I know better now, of course!), and was devastated to learn that there were unscrupulous people who could pass themselves off as agents merely to charge a reading fee and then abscond with that naive person’s trustingly-paid money. Oh well. We live and learn.

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So, having lived and learned through those trying experiences, which included the thrill of being offered publication by a small US publisher only to have said company disband three years later, setting me adrift as an indie author, I can still count many successes and highlights in my writing career. My first novel, King’s Envoy, gained the HarperCollins Authonomy Gold Medal award in 2008. That book, plus the second novel, King’s Champion, eventually became Amazon UK bestsellers. King’s Envoy was also short listed for the 2015 BookViral Book Awards. The entire first trilogy has been endorsed by one of my writing heroes, the US sci-fi, fantasy and non-fiction author Janet Morris, who has accepted two of my short stories, The Wyght Wyrm and Black Quill, for inclusion in her Perseid Press HEROIKA anthologies. Another of my shorts was included in the British Fantasy Society’s 40th anniversary anthology, Full Fathom Forty, published in 2011. I am still very proud of that achievement!

Yet despite that nice list of successes, my biggest thrill still comes from the comments and reviews of complete strangers who have picked up my novels and enjoyed reading them. I am often humbled and overwhelmed by the impact they tell me my novels have had. To me, that is the ultimate goal of the author, and was the reason I started writing in the first place: to connect with someone else’s heart and have them experience the excitement, trepidation, fear, anticipation and ultimate satisfaction of following my characters within a world I created out of my own imagination. I would be overjoyed should some of you decide to give my novels a try—please see the buying and social media links.

An excerpt from King’s Envoy 

Taran circled the noble warily, searching for weak points. The sun’s heat was increasing, he was sweating profusely. He lunged at the noble, forcing him back across the dusty ground, but the man disengaged and came at Taran again, giving him no time to draw breath. We’re too evenly matched, thought Taran, there’s no advantage. Sunlight struck blindingly from steel as his blade clashed and rang on the noble’s, labored breaths grunting through his throat.

They struggled back and forth for half an hour or so. Taran was bleeding from many superficial cuts; he was bruised and sore, but so was his opponent. Neither, it seemed, could gain the upper hand. Now that Taran’s early anger had been forgotten in his struggle for survival, he began to despair. A strange heaviness was weighing his arm and he was having trouble holding his own. He was dismayed; his stamina was usually greater than this. But his concentration was centered on his opponent’s latest flurry of vicious cuts and it took him a while to figure out what was happening.

He couldn’t understand it. What he suspected should not be possible. He and the noble hadn’t learned each other’s pattern of psyche, there was no way the other man could be affecting Taran’s life force. But it was undeniable. Insidiously, and contrary to all the rules and codes, the noble was draining Taran’s metaforce and using it to empower himself.

Outraged and confused, Taran’s mind shut down like a steel trap, cutting off the other’s leaching force. In panic, he accessed his psyche, using his own Artesan skills to bolster his flagging strength.

“Foul,” yelled his opponent. “The use of metaforce is forbidden by the codes.”

Taran saw the watching huntsmen stir at this cry. Infuriated by its hypocrisy, he realized he had walked straight into a trap. He couldn’t impeach the noble though, it was too late. And anyway, there was no one to believe him.

As he automatically blocked a low swipe to his leg, Taran recalled a glance exchanged between the noble and someone among the huntsmen. Coupled with the strange eager light in his opponent’s eyes, these signs should have warned Taran that something was amiss. Yet it had passed him by and this new failure only increased his frustration.

Enraged by the deception, Taran attacked with a burst of vicious strokes. The noble gave way before him but there was a knowing look in his eye. Now Taran understood that he had planned this all along. He had never intended to honor the contract. With no witnesses to speak for him, Taran was totally unprotected. He would have cursed himself savagely if only he’d had the strength.

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About Cas Peace:

Amazon UK Bestselling author Cas Peace lives in the lovely county of Hampshire, southern UK. On leaving school, she trained and qualified as a teacher of equitation. She also learned to carriage-drive. She then spent thirteen years in the British Civil Service before moving to Rome, Italy, where she and her husband Dave lived for three years.

As well as her love of horses, Cas is mad about dogs. She currently owns two rescue lurchers, Milly and Milo. Cas loves country walks, working in stained glass, growing cacti, and folk singing. She is also a songwriter and has written and recorded songs or music for five of her fantasy books. They are available to download (free!) from her website. You can also find Cas on www.reverbnation.com

Cas’s first novel, King’s Envoy, was awarded a HarperCollins Authonomy Gold Medal in 2008. The novel has since gone on to become an Amazon UK Bestseller, and was shortlisted for the 2015 BookViral Book Awards. Her Artesans series has also won the critical acclaim of US fantasy, sci-fi and non-fiction author, Janet Morris. Cas contributed to the 2015 Janet Morris-edited Perseid Press anthology HEROIKA 1: Dragon Eaters, and has another in the soon-to-be-published HEROIKA 2: Skirmishers. She also had a short story published in the British Fantasy Society’s 40th Anniversary anthology Full Fathom Forty.

As well as being a novelist, Cas is also a freelance editor and proofreader. Details of her Writers’ Services and other information can be found on her website: www.caspeace.com.

King's Envoy: http://geni.us/1o97 

Artesans of Albia Kindle Box Set: http://geni.us/SpBptY4

King's Envoy on Audio Book: http://geni.us/kingsenvoy

Cas Peace on Reverbnation (for book songs): http://geni.us/1GBh

Cas Peace Writers' Services for editing/copyediting/proofreading): http://www.caspeace.com/cas-peace/writers-services/editing/9-copy-or-line-editing

Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cas.peace

Twitter: @CasPeace1

Blog: https://peacewrites.blogspot.com/

Giveaway! Sexuality and its Impact on British History

I am delighted to offer TWO  copies of Sexuality and its Impact on British History - the British Stripped Bare. 

Eight authors: Annie Whitehead, Gayle Hulme, Hunter S Jones, Dr Beth Lynne, Emma Haddon-wright, Jessica Cale, Mary Ann Coleman and myself examine the impact of actual or implied sexual relationships on British history.

In my contribution to the anthology I delve deeply into the poetry of Thomas Wyatt, examine the events surrounding the arrest of Anne Boleyn and those accused alongside her, and consider Wyatt’s part in it.

Sexuality and its Impact on History chronicles the impact of romance and sex from the time of the Anglo-Saxons, through medieval and Tudor courtly love tradition to the Victorian era. It is due for publication in March 2018 by Pen and Sword Books.

For the chance of winning a copy please leave a comment below about why you'd like to be among the lucky winners. Your copy will be sent out on publication day -  30th March 2018. 

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Trisha Hughes talks to us about her new release

Today I welcome historical author, Trisha Hughes to the blog. Take it away, Trisha.

In history, to be an English king and to be murdered was no more than a hazard of the job and there have been a vast number of kings where this has actually been the case. The story of the kings and queens of England is a wonderful drama, far more surprising than you might think.

Times were brutal and they felt the need to take certain measures into their own hands, and trust me, there have been many extraordinary and various ways that royal family members have sought to delete relatives who were obstacles in the path of their determined progress to the throne. Many were not averse to the odd assassination or two by poisoning, starving, burning, imprisonment and an old favourite, beheading. It was hard enough to snatch the throne but it was even harder keeping it.

Many historians pass hazily over the precise methods employed to delete family members. Some choose to leave it as an insinuation of ‘died under suspicious circumstances’, because the entire truth will never be fully known. Some historians are not so coy. Neither am I.

When we speak of Britain’s monarchs, most of us would agree that early periods of time are clearly muddled. Many of the early British kings are hidden in the mists of time while some, the ones who lost crucial battles, have almost completely disappeared when the victors erased their rivals from all surviving records. There are kings who ruled for only a few months and there are some who ruled for over fifty years. There are also some who should never have ruled at all. They include, among their number, the vain, the greedy and the downright corrupt as well as adulterers, swindlers and cowards. Yet this group also shares one thing in common. In their lifetimes, they were the most powerful individuals in the land. My story, ‘Vikings to Virgin – The Hazard of being King’, spans 1500 years and is full of lust, betrayal, heroism, murder, cruelty and mysteries.

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If you know anything about the British, you’ll know that among the good and the well-meaning monarchs, some of them were ruthless, not to mention greedy, murderous and totally corrupt. Their story is better than a thriller about a serial killer on the loose because this story is absolutely true. Don’t imagine a fairy story with handsome kings whisking off princesses on their white horses to the sound of trumpets and the cheers of their people. Imagine powerful individuals who were brutal and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted and who were more than happy to get rid of the odd family member or two who were standing in the way of their progress to the throne.  

My story is based on facts, but it's told as a rambling narrative and is written in a way that I hope is easy to read. It’s a story of kings who struggled to hold on to their throne, of horrendous bloody battles, of tiny boys becoming rulers, of ruthless usurpers and of queens who proved to be more powerful than anyone could have ever imagined. It’s a story of invading armies, of rival family members, of spies and conspiracies. But what these people all had in common was during their lifetimes, they were the most powerful people in the land.

‘Vikings to Virgin – The Hazards of being King’ starts when Britain was just a race of people struggling to survive. It travels in time until the Britons first glimpsed a square sail and a dragon-headed prow on the horizon, churned by oars through the waves as blue water foamed around the hull of a mighty ship. The Vikings arrived in their long boats on a cold miserable January morning while the English people were enjoying their tranquility. No one heard the muffled sounds over the water. They were still rubbing sleep out of their eyes after a savage night of arctic air had cut its way through cracks in walls.

This book is a journey through time from the Romans, the Saxons and the Vikings and moves on to the brazen usurpation by the Normans followed by the arrival of the Plantagenets.  These early years were full of savagery and cruelty but by the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, they had transformed England into a sophisticated revered kingdom. But it was a long hard struggle during which the War of the Roses emerged.

The War of the Roses was basically a terrible family squabble that ended up a bloodbath between

royal cousins where each house was eager to snatch the crown and the throne of England for themselves away from other family members. Like most families, differences and intrigue slowly emerged and it wasn’t until 1455 with the first Battle of St Albans that anyone even knew there were two sides. But as with most rebellions, it left both sides vulnerable since it usually meant that battles were fought ‘to the bitter end’, leaving fewer contenders alive after every battle.

These two royal house, the symbolic red rose of the Lancasters and the equally symbolic white rose of the Yorks, were both making a claim for the throne and it ended up being a long and bloody battle with sporadic periods of extreme violence and bloodshed and an unprecedented number of attempts to usurp the throne. It was a dangerous period full of unfathomable brutality, shifting alliances, murders, betrayals, plots and the savage elimination of other direct descendants of the Plantagenets.

It ended when Henry Tudor usurped the throne from Richard III and a different sort of battle began as he continued on the bloodbath with gusto.

Book I of my trilogy ends with a comet blazing across the London skies, half the size of the moon, streaking fire behind it as it lit up the skies in glorious shads of red, white and gold. Tudor colours. In a suspicious England, it was a sign they had been waiting for. A sign of better times to come. And heaven knows, they needed it after the reign of Bloody Mary. With Mary, they’d suffered persecution worse than any other previous generation and they welcomed Elizabeth, an intelligent 25-year-old who dazzled everyone with her clever wit as she stepped up to take the throne, promising a better world, after her half-sister Mary Tudor’s death.

The story of the kings and queens of England is a wonderful drama and far more surprising than you might think. And I’ve loved every minute of it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Trisha Hughes started her writing career with her autobiography ‘Daughters of Nazareth’ eighteen years ago. The debut novel was first published by Pan Macmillan Australia and became a bestseller in 1997 beating the current Stephen King book to the top 10 bestsellers at the time.  Since then she has discovered a thirst for writing.  She’s written crime novels but her latest book, the first in her ‘V 2 V’ trilogy, ‘Vikings to Virgin – The Hazards of being King’ is her passion and due for release on 28^th February 2017. She is currently working on the second in the series ‘Virgin to Victoria – The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.’

You can buy your copy of Vikings to Virgins here

You can connect with Trisha through:

Trisha’s Website: www.trishahughesauthor.com

                           Or: www.vikingstovirgin.com

Facebook:             Trisha Hughes Author

Twitter:                  trishahughes_

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Interview with Helen Spring Author

Today I am rejoined by the fabulous author Helen Spring who has been working Blood Relatives,  a sequel to her novel The Chain Makers.  I couldnt wait to invite her here to tell us all about it.

 It is lovely to have you back, Helen. Last time we met up we talked about your novel ‘Strands of Gold’, and you told me you were currently working on a sequel to another of your novels, The Chainmakers.  It must be a great feeling to have finished the book. It’s called Blood Relatives isn’t it?  Tell us all about it and why you wanted to write a sequel?

I had a great response to ‘The Chainmakers’, and the one thing people asked over and over again was  ‘What happened to them afterwards?’ All stories and characters have an end at the close of the book, but of course the people continue in our minds, and in the ficticious world they inhabit. In this case the family unit was interesting, because at the end of the novel we have a couple with one son, and one baby who is an orphan.

Yes, that’s right. And your main character in ‘Blood Relatives’ is in fact that small baby, but all grown up. How did you think up her story?

Well, I felt that her adoptive parents, Anna and Clancy, had endured quite enough in ‘The Chainmakers’, but here was this sweet child, with lovely parents but a very chequered biological background, who would have to live her own life her way. As is happened, by the time she was 20 years old WW2 was raging through Europe, and the Italian side of her family would be living in German occupied Rome, so the story was there for the writing, so to speak.

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I quickly came to empathise with Victoria, and you have an interesting personality conflict between her and Giorgio, the Mafia boss, who is of course a distant relative. Why are you so interested in the Mafia?

I couldn’t escape it! Victoria and Giorgio shared a common great-uncle, who had been deported from the USA back to Italy. When he died he left Victoria a lovely Roman villa, it was entirely understandable that she would be thrilled and want to see it. Of course the Italian Mafia during the war was totally different to New York in the 1920’s. Circumstances and priorities have changed, but both Victoria and Giorgio bring their own prejudices to their relationship.

Was the research difficult for this part of the story?

Not so much difficult as almost overwhelming. There was a great deal of material, most of which was not relevant. In particular, I got very bogged down by the Ardeantine Cave Massacre, which is very well known in Italy but hardly known of here. In the end I had to ditch almost all except bits which were pertinent to the story I was trying to tell. The war kept getting in the way from beginning to end of this book, which was intended to be a love story.

Ah! It is a lovely love story. The lovely Guy is quite hunky isn’t he? What was the conflict between him and Victoria?

Getting them together was the problem! With all that was going on, they had very little time together so it was hard to build the romance. Of course, that was exactly what was happening all over the world at that time, separation and months without news of loved ones. I wanted to show that.

It’s interesting that they were from very different backgrounds. I liked that element of the story.

Yes, and also with very different experiences of the New York Mafia, who he would call ‘The Mob.’ His impoverished childhood has made him very self-reliant and what we would call today ‘street-wise.’ But he is very determined to make his own way, and has a happy attitude to life.             

And of course by the time Victoria managed to get back to New York, Guy was away fighting in Europe.

Yes, and the New York that Victoria returned to was also changed by the war. These were hard times for everyone, but I felt it was important that when Guy eventually comes home he is still full of fun and ready for anything.

I can’t wait to read it again, Helen. What are your writing plans now?

My next job is to put together a collection of short stories, which I also enjoy writing.

I could do with a bit of a rest and I am hoping this will be less demanding than another novel, but who knows? My characters have a way of writing themselves into interesting situations!

I shall secretly hope that they inflate into another wonderful novel. Thank you so much for joining us again. I am sure we will all rush to buy it as soon as it hits the shelves.

Thank you for having me. I look forward to speaking to you again.

Helen Springs books are available in paperback and on Kindle.

Click here to purchase if you are in UK

 Click here if you are in the US

Click here to purchase if you are in the UK

and here if you are in the US

Click here to purchase if you are in the UK

and here if you are in the US

The Winchester Goose - Coming Soon

I am just applying the finishing touches to The Winchester Goose now and it should reach the shelves in time for Christmas.

Writing this one has been a whole different experience to my other books. My confidence in it waxed and waned like the moon; sometimes I hated it and thought I should bin it, other times it seemed to be the best thing I have written so far.

As usual I am breaking all the rules, writing in the first person present tense but I make no apologies. My books are conceived in my head and nurtured in my  heart, they just sort of happen. Planning and rules go out of the window.

My characters are always flawed,  and the first person narrative, that gives voice to all those inner thoughts that we usually conceal, makes them human. 

You won't find many unstained characters in The Winchester Goose. Francis Wareham is a serial womaniser, thoroughly charismatic but incurably disloyal, and I have  made no attempt to dress him in prettier armour. 

I haven't hidden Joanie Toogood's flaws either. Probably the most endearing person in the book, Joanie is a prostitute from Southwark who, rather like a saucy Florence Nightinglae, seeks to nurture anyone who will let her. As a result her business flourishes and she is popular with both commoner and nobleman alike. Her downfall begins when she meets Francis and is unable to resist his boyish charm.

Although she is a bit of a bad girl, her  humanity is very close to the surface, and it is Joanie's uneducated observations of events at the Court of Henry VIII that make us smile.

Tudor London: 1540. Each night, after dark, men flock to Bankside seeking girls of easy virtue; prostitutes known as The Winchester Geese. Joanie Toogood has worked the streets of Southwark since childhood but her path is changed forever by an encounter with Francis Wareham, a spy for the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell.

Meanwhile, across the River Thames, at the glittering court of Henry VIII, Wareham also sets his cap at Evelyn and Isabella Bourne, members of the Queen’s household and the girls, along with Joanie, are drawn into intrigue and the shadow of the executioner’s blade.

Set against the turmoil of Henry VIII’s middle years, The Winchester Goose provides a brand new perspective of the happenings at the royal court, offering a frank and often uncomfortable observation of life at both ends of the social spectrum.

The Winchester Goose will be available on a Kindle near you very soon.

Paperback to follow in 2013.