The Coffee Pot Book Club – Page 25

I’m delighted to welcome Linnea Tanner to the blog, with Apollo’s Raven, Book 1 in Curse of Clansmen and Kings

Your book, Apollo’s Raven, sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

Thank you for featuring me as an author of Apollo’s Raven (Book 1 Curse of Clansmen and Kings) in the blog tour. You pose an interesting question, because the evolution of the characters and storyline has been a lifelong journey. Since childhood, the characters of a female warrior and her Roman lover have lived in my head, in part, as a way for me to deal with challenges in my own life. Both characters are bigger than life, but I never had a cohesive tale until I discovered historical figures who inspired me to develop the overall arc of the storyline.

A pivotal point for creating the story was during one of my business travels to the United Kingdom. I was intrigued by the statue of a warrior queen and her daughters in a chariot, alongside the Thames River in London. After I did more research, I learned that she was Boudicca—an Iceni warrior queen who united the Britons in a rebellion against the Romans in AD 61 to expel them from Britannia. Roman historians describe her as a powerful druidess who sacrificed some of her victims to the war goddess, Andraste. Although the Celtic society was becoming more paternalistic, women were still held in high regard and could rule. The legacy of warrior queens in ancient Britannia and in Irish mythology inspired the primary protagonist, Catrin, in the series.

The legacy of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) and his tragic downfall with Cleopatra inspired the creation of Catrin’s Roman lover, Marcellus. Mark Antony’s son (Iullus Antonius) from a previous marriage also suffered a similar tragic fate— he was forced to commit suicide for his scandalous affair with Augustus Caesar’s only daughter, Julia. Little is known about Iullus’s son, Lucius Antonius, except that he was exiled to Gaul as a young man, most likely as a condition to escape his father’s fate. During the period in my series, the Antonius family legacy is cursed by the act of damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) for Marcus and Iullus Antonius, who both died in disgrace as a consequence of their liaisons with women. One of the burning questions I had is how would the tragic Antonius legacy impact Lucius Antonius? How would he react if his own son went down the same fateful path as his ancestors?

And thus, Marcellus, the son of Lucius Antonius, was created and cursed to meet the tragic fate as his ancestors. Catrin also lives under the curse cast against her father, King Amren, that foretells she and her half-brother will overthrow their father and rule the Cantiaci Kingdom in southeast Britannia.

I drafted a three-page summary in 2010 for initially three books in the Curse of Clansmen and Kings series, which is now envisioned to be at least five books, a sequel, and other books associated with the characters. The series spans the time period between AD 24 through AD 40 in the backdrop of ancient Britannia, Gaul, and Rome. Prior to the Roman conquest of Britannia, tribal kings fought each other for power and sought interference from Rome to settle political differences. The series is an epic tale with universal themes of love versus duty, political corruption, otherworldly forces, loyalty, vengeance, and redemption.

When I look back at my original summary, the storyline has changed substantially. Apollo’s Raven starts earlier in southeast Britannia to give a taste of the Celtic culture and beliefs to contrast with the Romans. Since the Celts left few written records, most of the backdrop for Celtic society is based on Greek and Roman accounts and archaeological findings. Interestingly, Julius Caesar left some of the most detailed accounts about the Celtic society in Gaul and Britannia.

Fantastical elements were added to reflect the culture and religious beliefs of Britons to contract with the paternalistic Romans. The magical elements are based on Welsh and Irish mythology and legends, similar to Arthurian legends. The story was changed so that Catrin can connect with ravens, which is seen as a bad omen. As she is struggling to understand this unnatural connection, she is romantically drawn to the captivating Roman hostage, Marcellus—her family’s enemy.

Likewise, Marcellus is confounded by Catrin’s mystical ability to travel to other worlds through her spirit guide, the Raven. She co-exists in the realm of mankind and in the Otherworld of the gods and the dead which empower with the ability to see through the eyes of a raven, foretell the future, and hear his thoughts. His intimate relationship with Catrin could unravel the volatile politics between Rome and Britannia.

One of the most fascinating concepts of Celtic religion that I incorporated into the series is the Celtic belief in the reincarnation of the soul. Their belief is consistent with the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who believed in metempsychosis, or the “transmigration of souls.” Every soul is immortal and, upon death, enters into a new body. I freely use this concept to explain shapeshifting and other magical powers, which was not originally included in the series.

In essence, seeds for the characters and storyline germinated over time in my mind, but then evolved to include fantastical elements after I developed the original summary of the plotline. After that, characters directed how their stories should be told in my head, and I was further inspired from further research and travels.

Thank you so much for sharing with on the blog. I wish you huge success with the series.

Here’s the blurb:

A Celtic warrior princess is torn between her forbidden love for the enemy and duty to her people.

AWARD-WINNING APOLLO’S RAVEN sweeps you into an epic Celtic tale of forbidden love, mythological adventure, and political intrigue in Ancient Rome and Britannia. In 24 AD British kings hand-picked by Rome to rule are fighting each other for power. King Amren’s former queen, a powerful Druid, has cast a curse that Blood Wolf and the Raven will rise and destroy him. The king’s daughter, Catrin, learns to her dismay that she is the Raven and her banished half-brother is Blood Wolf. Trained as a warrior, Catrin must find a way to break the curse, but she is torn between her forbidden love for her father’s enemy, Marcellus, and loyalty to her people. She must summon the magic of the Ancient Druids to alter the dark prophecy that threatens the fates of everyone in her kingdom.

Will Catrin overcome and eradicate the ancient curse. Will she be able to embrace her forbidden love for Marcellus? Will she cease the war between Blood Wolf and King Amren and save her kingdom?

Trigger Warnings:

Sex, Violence, Sacrificial Rituals

Buy Links:

Apollo’s Raven:

Amazon (Universal Link):

Amazon UK: Amazon US: Amazon CA: Amazon AU:

Barnes and Noble: Waterstones: Kobo:

iBooks: GooglePlay: Booktopia: Books-A-Million:

Audio: Audible: iTunes:

Series Links:

Apollo’s Raven (Book 1):

Dagger’s Destiny (Book 2):

Amulet’s Rapture (Book 3):

Meet the Author

Award-winning author, Linnea Tanner, weaves Celtic tales of love, magical adventure, and political intrigue in Ancient Rome and Britannia. Since childhood, she has passionately read about ancient civilizations and mythology. Of particular interest are the enigmatic Celts, who were reputed as fierce warriors and mystical Druids.

Linnea has extensively researched ancient and medieval history, mythology, and archaeology and has traveled to sites described within each of her books in the Curse of Clansmen and Kings series. Books released in her series include Apollo’s Raven (Book 1), Dagger’s Destiny (Book 2), and Amulet’s Rapture (Book 3). Skull’s Vengeance (Book 4) is anticipated to be released in late 2021 or early 2022.

A Colorado native, Linnea attended the University of Colorado and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry. She lives in Fort Collins with her husband and has two children and six grandchildren.

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Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Apollo’s Raven blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Today, I’m delighted to welcome A M Linden and her new book, The Oath, to the blog with a post about what inspired her to write the book #BlogTour

Welcome to the blog. I’m hoping you’re share what inspired you to write the book with my readers.

The initial inspiration for The Oath—and the books that were to follow it—was an image that came to me when I was mulling over the idea of writing a tongue-in-cheek medieval murder mystery as a way to balance the formal writing I did for work. More accurately, I had just dismissed this as a charming but unrealistic notion since to write any sort of fiction you need to have characters and a plot, and I had neither. Then, out of the blue, I pictured a Druid priest and a Christian nun having a conversation in a dirt-walled chamber.

Since that odd experience, I’ve had occasion to say that writing the five volumes of The Druid Chronicles was what I did to find out who those two people were, what they were talking about, and what happened to them afterwards. There was, of course, more to it than that since I’d seen images of modern Druids celebrating the summer solstice at Stone Henge, knew a little about the Roman destruction of the Druidic center on the island of Anglesey, and took it for granted that later vilification of polytheistic worshippers by the Christian church was at the basis of our current stereotypes of sorcerers and witches. In any case, I was intrigued by the thought of a Druid and a nun having a clandestine meeting, and went on to scribble the first draft of a story that took them out of that underground cell into a world that seemed to grow around them, replete with complicated characters, unexpected plot twists, and moral quandaries.

Looking back now, I realize that I owe much of their story to other sources of inspiration as well, including the Native American creation stories my mother read to me at bedtime, the works of JRR Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin that captivated me as a teenager, and the impact that the African proverb, “Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter” had on me the first time I heard it. While I can’t say what part of this eclectic mix inspired which aspect of The Druid Chronicles, I know I could not have come up with it just out of the blue.

Thank you so much for sharing. Good luck with the books.

Here’s the blurb:

When the last of members of a secretive Druid cult are forced to abandon their hidden sanctuary, they send the youngest of their remaining priests in search of Annwr, their chief priestess’s sister, who was abducted by a Saxon war band fifteen years ago. With only a rudimentary grasp of English and the ambiguous guidance of an oracle’s prophecy, Caelym manages to find Annwr living in a hut on the grounds of a Christian convent.

Annwr has spent her years of captivity caring for the timid Aleswina, an orphaned Saxon princess who was consigned to the cloistered convent by her cousin, King Gilberth, after he assumed her father’s throne. Just as Caelym and Annwr are about leave together, Aleswina learns that Gilberth, a tyrant known for his cruelty and vicious temper, means to take her out of the convent and marry her. Terrified, she flees with the two Druids—beginning a heart-pounding adventure that unfolds in ways none of them could have anticipated.

Praise:

“Linden’s well-researched tale eloquently brings to life a lesser-known period of transition in Britain. . . . The author has created a strong foundation for her series with well-developed characters whom readers can embrace. . . . [a] layered, gripping historical fiction.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“The story rolls along at a lively pace, rich with details of the times and a wide cast of characters. [The] plotting, shifting points of view of the three engaging protagonists, and evocative writing style make The Oath a pleasure to read. Highly recommended.”

—Historical Novel Review

“Linden uses a fairy tale-like style almost as though this story has been passed down orally over the centuries.”

—Booklist Review

Trigger Warnings:

Sexual assault, child abuse

Buy Links:

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Meet the author

Ann Margaret Linden was born in Seattle, Washington, but grew up on the east coast of the United States before returning to the Pacific Northwest as a young adult. She has undergraduate degrees in anthropology and in nursing and a master’s degree as a nurse practitioner. After working in a variety of acute care and community health settings, she took a position in a program for children with special health care needs where her responsibilities included writing clinical reports, parent educational materials, provider newsletters, grant submissions and other program related materials. The Druid Chronicles began as a somewhat whimsical decision to write something for fun and ended up becoming a lengthy journey that involved Linden taking adult education creative writing courses, researching early British history, and traveling to England, Scotland, and Wales. Retired from nursing, she lives with her husband and their cat and dog in the northwest corner of Washington State.

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Today, I’m delighted to welcome N L Holmes to the blog with her book, Bird in a Snare, the first book in The Lord Hani Mysteries #blogpost

Today, I’m delighted to welcome N L Holmes to the blog. She’s going to share with us all the inspiration behind her Egyptian mystery books.

In a way, my Egyptian stories started the same way yours did, M.J. As a kid, I used to love all those fifties sword-and-sandal movies like The Egyptian and Land of the Pharaohs. That awakened my fascination with archaeology and perhaps with what ancient societies looked like. I remember raising pennies to help raise the temple at Abu Simbel when Lake Nassar was being built. During the decades that followed, I got sidetracked from my first love, but in my fortieth year, I went back to school and got my PhD in archaeology after all. Not specifically Egyptian, but Classical and Near Eastern, which situated me in the Eastern Mediterranean. And that meant people who interacted with the Egyptians. The interest was still simmering!

We’re getting closer now to the actual inspiration for Lord Hani. Over the following twenty-five years, I taught a wide variety of classes on ancient culture and history, including one on Ancient Egypt and one called Ancient Near Eastern Empires, which included Egypt and the Hittites. My family had been bookish, so the idea of starting to write fiction when I retired from teaching was a natural one. And the first inspiration I had for a story came from that Ancient Empires class. As an exercise, I had assigned my students to read the few brief historical documents referring to a certain royal divorce in the Syrian city of Ugarit, a vassal of the Hittites. “Now,” I told them, “describe what we really know about the event.” It became pretty clear that there wasn’t much you could say without drifting off into speculation. I said to myself, There’s a novel in there! So when I retired, I began to write The Queen’s Dog and expanded it into the Empire at Twilight series, set in the last few generations of the Hittite Empire.

From my teaching experience, though, I knew there were only about five people in the world who got excited by the Hittites, whereas loads of people were Egyptophiles. I loved Egypt too, after all. And we had a wonderful resource in the Amarna Letters. This is a partial archive of diplomatic correspondence from the reign of Akhenaten, the “heretic pharaoh”, that tells us nearly everything we know about Egypt’s relationship with its vassals and peers in the fourteenth century BCE. Here was a ready-made cast of characters and loads of plot points grounded in reality. Hani son of Mery-ra appeared frequently in the Letters, and his every mission was ready to become an adventure. I took Hani as my protagonist and developed his character into the sort of man I thought might be a trusted royal emissary under several kings. Then I selected a number of events and personages and wove them together. The process was “This, this, and this happened. Now explain it. Give the actors motives and relationships.”

I’m not a writer who plots in advance, so I can’t say that had any particular story in mind before I started. The process was one of tying diverse threads in so that nothing was left dangling at the end. In addition to Hani’s particular adventures, I wanted to capture a sense of the social and political upheaval Akhenaten inflicted on his kingdom with his “reforms.” Thus, I made Hani’s family involved with the worship of Amen-Ra—people whose personal lives took a direct hit from the revolution of values. Hani’s crisis of conscience is an ongoing thread through the six books of the series. But in addition to the political intrigue and the personal or familial arc, there is also a murder mystery in each book. In the case of Bird in a Snare and The North Wind Descends, the murder is a real historical fact; the others are fictional. After my experience with the Hittite series, I thought a solid, definable genre series might be easier for readers to digest. People seemed not to know exactly what to do with a genre-less, perhaps literary book set in the remote past, just because there weren’t any. Historical mysteries are familiar and popular. And that is how Lord Hani came to be!

Thank you so much for sharing the inspiration behind your series of books. They sound fascinating. Good luck with them.

Here’s the blurb:

W hen Hani, an Egyptian diplomat under Akhenaten, is sent to investigate the murder of a useful bandit leader in Syria, he encounters corruption, tangled relationships, and yet more murder. His investigation is complicated by the new king’s religious reforms, which have struck Hani’s own family to the core. Hani’s mission is to amass enough evidence for his superiors to prosecute the wrongdoers despite the king’s protection—but not just every superior can be trusted. And maybe not even the king! Winner of the 2020 Geoffrey Chaucer Award for historical fiction before 1750.

Trigger Warnings:
Sexual abuse of children

Buy Links:

Amazon UK: Amazon US: Amazon CA: Amazon AU:

Barnes and Noble: Kobo: iBooks: Audio:

Universal Links for series:

Bird in a Snare (Book 1):

The Crocodile Makes No Sound (Book 2):

Scepter of Flint (Book 3):

The North Wind Descends (Book 4):

Lake of Flowers (Book 5):

Meet the author

N.L. Holmes is the pen name of a professional archaeologist who received her doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. She has excavated in Greece and in Israel and taught ancient history and humanities at the university level for many years. She has always had a passion for books, and in childhood, she and her cousin (also a writer today) used to write stories for fun.

Connect with N L Holmes

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Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the Bird in a Snare blog tour with The Coffee Pot book Club

Today, I’m delighted to host a fascinating guest post from Brodie Curtis about his new book, Angels and Bandits #BlogTour

Today, I’m delighted to share a fab post from Brodie Curtis about the inspiration behind his new book, Angels and Bandits.

ANGELS and BANDITS is my second historical novel, set around The Battle of Britain. What inspired ANGELS and BANDITS? Well, I can say the book is a follow-on to THE FOUR BELLS, my debut novel which portrays events during the Great War. Protagonist Eddy Beane is the answer to a loose thread from my first book, and we follow Eddy’s story all the way to those heady days when Britain stood alone in 1940.

But my inspiration for ANGELS and BANDITS goes beyond a sequel and is rooted in deep respect and admiration for the Royal Air Force’s defence of unrelenting German Luftwaffe bombing attacks in August and September of 1940. For those of us who have never experienced war in our day to day lives, and hopefully never will, just imagine London in late summer 1940. Sirens wailed, ack-ack guns boomed and in between Londoners heard the droning engines of bombers somewhere high overhead. Explosions, death and destruction became part of daily life.

Contemporary images of mostly boyish countenances of RAF fighter pilots present the young men, who were inexperienced in life but tasked with the weighty life-saving responsibility of protecting civilians. It was up to them to confront and repel the German Luftwaffe and all of its daunting scale, efficiency and weaponry. It is the story of those young men and how they dug deep within themselves to accomplish the task that inspired me.

For me, I was stirred beyond words reading Churchill’s war-time speeches and famous line: “Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few.” Walking by The Battle of Britain sculpture on Victoria Embankment in London, opposite the London Eye, was terrifically inspiring.

Watching YouTube clips of the Spitfire in action took my breath away. And I must admit that watching scenes from Michael Caine’s movie The Battle of Britain, for the umpteenth time, still gives me chills.

So who were “The Few”? That question, I suppose, is at the heart of ANGELS and BANDITS. My impression from a deep research dive is that “The Few” were men of many backgrounds. Some educated, some not; some wealthy, some far from it; Englishmen and Canadians and Aussies, Poles and Czechs, and many more. All united by the masterful leadership of Air Marshals Hugh Dowding and Keith Park, and others.

How did “The Few” do it? The answer, in part, is that many of them flew the magnificent Spitfire, Britain’s elegant yet powerful fighter plane.

The more I learn about Spits, the more I love them, and can’t wait for the day I look into the cockpit of one. My admiration for Spitfires surely comes through in many scenes in ANGELS and BANDITS.

I would draw a contrast with the inspiration for my debut novel, THE FOUR BELLS. That book was set in motion years ago, in a homey lounge, when I heard a gorgeously mournful acoustic version of John McCutcheon’s song about the transcendent Christmas Truce of 1914. It inspired me to research reports on the truce in contemporaneous writings and non-fiction, and to walk the fields of Flanders. Its funny how your characters take you along on their own journey. In the end, The Christmas Truce became just one important scene in THE FOUR BELLS.

Thank you so much for sharing your inspiration and good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

The Battle of Britain rages and two young RAF pilots from very different stations in life must somehow find common ground—and stay alive.

On the eve of World War II, working-class Eddy Beane is a flight instructor in London. He successfully completes dangerous espionage missions for Air Commodore Keith Park and takes on society-girl June Stephenson as a student. Her ex-fiancé, Dudley Thane, is also a flyer, but upper-class and Cambridge-educated. When the German Luftwaffe attacks England in 1940, Eddy and Dudley end up serving in the same Spitfire squadron. Aerial combat is intense, and both men show their skills and courage, but can they set aside jealousy and class differences to become fighting brothers for the defence of Britain?

Buy Links:

Universal Link:

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Meet the author

Raised in the Midwest, Brodie Curtis was educated as a lawyer and left the corporate world to embrace life in Colorado with his wife and two sons.

Curtis is the author of THE FOUR BELLS, a novel of The Great War, which is the product of extensive historical research, including long walks through the fields of Flanders, where much of the book’s action is set. His second novel, ANGELS AND BANDITS, takes his protagonists into The Battle of Britain. Curtis is currently working on a novel set on a Mississippi Riverboat prior to the Civil War.

A lover of history, particularly American history and the World Wars, Curtis reviews historical fiction for the Historical Novels Review and more than 100 of his published reviews and short takes on historical novels can be found on his website.

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Today, I’m delighted to share a guest post from Edward Londergan about his new book, Unlike Any Other #blogtour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Today, I’m welcoming Edward Londergan and his new novel, Unlike Any Other to the blog. Edward has written a fascinating post about the locations used in his novel, and how he researched them.

One of the most important aspects of research I undertook to write the book is identifying and understanding the physical locations where the story took place. One of the most important aspects of any historical fiction story is the location. Luckily for me, the three places where most of the story takes place are relatively close to my home. Knowing each of the locations well helps me make the reader be there and see it in their mind’s eye. It helps me craft the story better to make it more lifelike. I want the reader to be there. I firmly believe that if the writer can’t see it neither can the reader.

The three main locations are all in Central Massachusetts—the small town of Hardwick, the City of Worcester, and the town of Brookfield. One of the great helps to me was the maps of Revolutionary War era Brookfield drawn by a local historian and cartographer. He put together a series of maps of Brookfield during Bathsheba’s time living there. He did quite a bit of research for the maps and I was lucky enough to learn of them from a mutual acquaintance. Unfortunately, he passed away before I began writing the book, so I could not ask the dozen questions I had for him.

He took great care to get the location of each building of each farm, of the taverns and cemetery. Using his maps and my wonderful and sometimes intimidating imagination, I visualized the village and could walk through it from end to end as if I lived in that moment.

Bathsheba grew up on her father’s estate in Hardwick. He was a wealthy man and owned large tracts of land. A large house sat on the top of a hill that could be seen for miles in every direction. To proclaim his undying allegiance to the British crown, he had a large boulder dragged to the middle of this field. A large hole two feet deep was drilled in it. A tall tree trunk was used as a flagpole from which flew a large Union Jack. Having such a flag on such a tall pole on top of a high hill rubbed many people in pre-Revolutionary War Massachusetts the wrong way. To be able to go to the estate site and gaze across the open fields, see the long stone walls he had built, stand on that boulder and look in the hole, and visualize the flag curling in the breeze made it all come alive for me.

In Brookfield, I could drive and walk the roads where all the buildings once stood that Bathsheba would have known and perhaps visited. The roads of today follow, for the most part, the roads of that time. To go to the location of Bathsheba’s house, which is long since gone having been abandoned and falling down many years ago, and stand where the front steps remain, blocks of granite, a short distance from the well where her husband’s body was put after he was murdered. To walk up the dirt road and know that she once rode her horse on it, walked it as I did, or drove in their carriage along it makes it all real. The church they attended still stands. The town common is the same shape as it was then. Some of the houses surrounding it existed when Bathsheba lived there. She would have walked by these same places.

In my stories, I want to put the reader there. If they realize they’re reading, I’ve failed as a writer. I want my readers to get lost in the story so that the pages seemingly turn themselves. I want the reader to be at the tavern, sit before at a table near the fire on a cold winter day, and see the mug of rum before them.

Having grown up in Worcester, I’m familiar with the city. Knowing the locations of the jail, courthouse, meeting house, Bathsheba’s sister’s estate, and the burying ground all helped me imagine what it was like during those events. Interestingly, Bathsheba and her unborn child, killed when she was executed, were buried on her sister’s estate, which in 1905 was gifted to the City of Worcester and is now Green Hill Park. She and her baby lie somewhere within the park in an unmarked grave.

Thank you so much for sharing your research with me. It sounds amazing. I do love a good map. Good luck with your new book.

Here’s the blurb:

The Story of An 18th Century Woman from A Prominent New England Family Who Went from A Life of Privilege to The Gallows

Bathsheba Spooner was the daughter of Timothy Ruggles, a general in the French and Indian War, president of the Stamp Act Congress, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and a leading loyalist in Massachusetts during the Revolutionary War; the epitome of upper class.

Like her father, Bathsheba was smart, strong-willed, and a staunch British loyalist. Forced to marry a man she did not love, Bathsheba withstood her husband’s abuse for years until a young Continental soldier entered her life. But when this well-heeled mother of three small children discovered she was pregnant with the soldier’s child, her thoughts quickly turned to murder.

Based on a true story, the events that follow Bathsheba’s life, her decisions, and her ultimate demise will show readers that Bathsheba Spooner was, in fact, Unlike Any Other . . .

Buy Links:

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Meet the Author

Ed Londergan is the author of the award-winning books The Devils’ Elbow and The Long Journey Home. Having researched American history for many years, he is a frequent speaker with a focus on colonial Massachusetts. A graduate of Holy Cross, he lives in Warren, Massachusetts.

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Follow the Unlike Any Other blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

The Last King is on blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

What better way to celebrate, nearly, two years of Coelwulf and his pals, than with a blog tour to showcase all of the books in the series (to date – I’m currently working on book 7).

What started as a bit of mad idea in The Last King has become a series featuring a cast of warriors (and horses) that my readers love reading about, and about who I love to write. Not to mention inspiring the prequel series – which begins with Son of Mercia – and tells the story of a very young Icel.

To celebrate all of this, I have three, yes three, paperback copies of the short story collection, Coelwulf’s Company, to giveaway to readers. They’ll come signed and dated, and to anywhere in the world. To enter, just follow this link to Rafflecopter, where it’ll ask you to follow me on Twitter, and you should be entered. I’ll get in touch with the winners at the end of the giveaway, which I hope is midnight on 18th March 2022 (if I’ve set it up correctly). Good luck with the prize draw and do let me know if there are any problems.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enjoy the blog tour, with The Coffee Pot Book Club, and a huge thanks to all the hosts for featuring the series.

Today, I’m excited to welcome Elizabeth R Anderson to the blog to talk about her wonderful series, The Two Daggers.

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Elizabeth R Anderson to my blog, to talk about the inspiration behind her The Two Daggers Series.

I hate flying. But, on a flight from Prague to Seattle in 2018, it was not a fear of dying in a fiery crash that bothered me; it was an idea that had entered my head and would not leave.

What would happen if a Medieval nobleman was falsely accused of being a leper and lost everything?

Some people just watch a few movies and fall asleep until they land at their destination. Oh, to be one of those people!

I had 10-hours of flying time, so I opened my laptop and got busy writing a few exploratory chapters about a knight returning from a stint on crusade in the Levant (the area roughly compromising the Middle East today). Eventually, an evil bishop would poison him, accuse him of being a leper, and seize his property. This was so easy! Knights in shining armor! A ready-made conflict and resolution. A cookie-cutter villain!

Can you spot the problems with this idea already? Hint: Everything about this idea is a problem.

I am so grateful that when I was back on the ground, my research led me to understand how wrong my premise was and how it was time to rethink everything about the way I viewed the Middle Ages, from racism and religion to personal hygiene.

Setting aside the fact that it’s really not easy to fake leprosy (now referred to as Hansen’s Disease), there is ample evidence that people afflicted with the disease were treated with compassion and even viewed as blessed by God because of their earthly suffering. King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was notable for being a leper. There was even a brotherhood of leper knights living in the Holy Land – the Order of Saint Lazarus. So there went that idea.

“People scrambling to get away from a person with leprosy” by R Cooper: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:People_scrambling_to_get_away_from_a_leper,_in_their_haste_t_Wellcome_V0017056.jpg>>

I dug deeper. If lepers weren’t as badly treated as I had thought, was that also the case with other people? What about Jews and Muslims? Here is where things became even more interesting. As the pilgrims, fighters, and settlers of the West (France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the city-states on the Italian peninsula) arrived in the Levant, they were indeed bigoted and horrendous to the local citizens. But the more time that these settlers spent with their Levantine neighbors, the more accepting they became. Few of the villages surrounding the large cities of Jerusalem, Tyre, and Tripoli were heavily mixed. But curiously, the towns around the city of Acre on the coast did seem to have a mix of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other religious people who tolerated each other relatively well.

What was it about this place?

This was when I became engrossed in the history of that city – a melting pot of cultures, races, religions, and intrigues. I want to acknowledge that bigotry and racism did exist in Acre (and everywhere else). Jews were still forced to work in jobs considered undesirable for Christians, such as moneylending and tax collecting. Muslims could still be enslaved – and often were – in the homes of Christian nobles. Captives from the territories south of Cairo received the worst treatment – a tragic indication of what was to come later as importing slaves to the Americas became common practice.

Acre. This lively, filthy, cosmopolitan city thrived with wealth and trade that benefitted Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the year 1291. So why was it attacked? How could the peace that existed between the Crusaders and the Mamluk army disintegrate so quickly?

Continuing down the research spiral of broken truces, spies, political plots, and miraculous events that led to the final siege of the city, I came across a line in the account of the Templar of Tyre that referenced a single, unnamed viscount and his disastrous mistake outside the walls of Acre.

That’s when I realized I had found my story.

The year 1291 is when the Christians were ousted from the Levant and no longer held significant territory near Jerusalem. This began the glory of the Mamluk period when powerful Muslim families founded by Turkish slaves started to form, put down roots, and create dynasties. There was so much happening at this time, and yet, sandwiched between the death of Saint Louis and the beginning of the Plague in 1348, the Siege of Acre is often a side note in the historical record.

Two years later, I published The Scribe. The book follows four young people with seemingly opposite backgrounds as they come of age in Acre: a kidnapped slave soldier, a feisty orphan girl, a rising star in the Mamluk army, and a spoiled viscount. The first book builds the history of these characters and sets the scene for the siege in book two (The Land of God, pub August 2021). After that, these characters must make their way in a world where any fleeting tolerance that did exist was snuffed out by fear of disease, economic hardships, and religious extremism.

The fact that this story started completely different from what I had planned is what I love about it. The characters in the books are twisted and molded by tumultuous events that they cannot escape. Their challenges are still ours today; how to think about the world, whether to go along with injustice or fight it, love, lust, hate, family, and friends.

In 800 years, humans haven’t changed all that much.

The Two Daggers series will contain five books in total. Elizabeth wants to get to the end as quickly as her readers do and is researching and writing at breakneck speed!

Sources: The list of sources for The Scribe and The Land of God are available on Goodreads. For this article, the following sources were used:

Medieval Leprosy Reconsidered, Timothy S. Miller and Rachel Smith-Savage, International Social Science Review, Vol 81, No 1, (2006)
Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ellenblum, Ronnie, Cambridge University Press, 1998

Thank you so much for sharing your story with me, and for providing a bibliography. I like that:) Good luck with the series.

The Scribe (Book 1)

All Henri of Maron wanted was to stay with his family on his country estate, surrounded by lemon groves and safety. But in 13th century Palestine, when noble-born boys are raised to fight for the Holy Land, young Henri will be sent to live and train among men who hate him for what he is: a French nobleman of an Arab mother. Robbed of his humanity and steeped in cruelty, his encounters with a slave soldier, a former pickpocket, and a kindly scribe will force Henri to confront his own beliefs and behaviors. Will Henri maintain the status quo in order to fit into a society that doesn’t want him, or will fate intervene first?

The first book in The Two Daggers series, The Scribe takes readers on a sweeping adventure through the years and months that lead up to the infamous Siege of Acre in 1291 CE and delves into the psyches of three young people caught up in the wave of history.

The Land of God (Book 2)

Pain. His sister’s screams. And a beautiful face in the jeering crowd. When Henri of Maron woke, he had only a few memories of his brutal flogging, but he knew the world had changed. He had changed.

Now, as he grapples with the fallout from his disastrous decisions, war with the Mamluk army looms closer. To convince the city leaders to take the threat seriously, Henri and the grand master of the Templars must rely on unlikely allies and bold risks to avoid a siege.

Meanwhile, Sidika is trying to find a way to put her life back together. When she is forced to flee her home, her chance encounters with a handsome amir and a strangely familiar old woman will have consequences for her future.

The Land of God weaves the real historical figures with rich, complex characters and an edge-of-seat plot. Readers who enjoyed the Brethren series by Robyn Young and The Physician by Noah Gordon will appreciate this immersive tale set in the Middle East in the Middle Ages.

Trigger warnings:

Torture, violence, sexual assault, sexual content.

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Meet the Author

Elizabeth R. Andersen’s debut novel, The Scribe, launched in July of 2021. Although she spent many years of her life as a journalist, independent fashion designer, and overworked tech employee, there have always been two consistent loves in her life: writing and history. She finally decided to do something about this and put them both together.

Elizabeth lives in the Seattle area with her long-suffering husband and young son. On the weekends she usually hikes in the stunning Cascade mountains to hide from people and dream up new plotlines and characters. Elizabeth is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Alliance of Independent Authors.

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Don’t forget to check out the other stops on The Scribe blog tour, with The Coffee Pot Book Club.

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Mercedes Rochelle to the blog with her new book, A King Under Siege.

Your book, A King Under Siege, sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

Shakespeare and A King Under Siege

Back in my college days, I watched the new BBC Shakespeare Production of Richard II with Derek Jacobi. I had never heard of Richard, but I watched this play with growing fascination and by the end, when he sat in prison bemoaning the fate of kings, I was smitten. You know, I carried him around with me for over forty years, intending to write his story someday.

At the time, I didn’t realize that Shakespeare only covered the last three years of Richard’s life in the play. I had no idea what I was in for: first the Peasants’ Revolt then the Lords Appellant (and the Merciless Parliament) putting Richard’s friends and advisors to death. His story was much more complicated than I ever imagined. And of course, it helped explain the events in Shakespeare’s play—especially the exile of Henry Bolingbroke, which was kind of “out of left field” to me. In fact, I would say that events during Richard’s reign deserved more than one play, but there’s a possibility that Shakespeare might have upset the queen if he had done so. He barely managed to stay out of jail as it was—especially after the Earl of Essex used his play to promote his ill-fated rebellion.

But I digress. Suffice it to say that Shakespeare’s play actually depicted events in my next book, THE KING’S RETRIBUTION. So I had to go back and start from the beginning. At first, I was going to gloss over the Peasants’ Revolt, but frankly I found it too interesting to ignore. Wat Tyler and John Ball were giant personalities, and their revolt shook medieval society to its core. And indeed, I think Richard’s actions revealed his courage under fire—a trait so important to kingship. Too bad he was only fourteen and under the thumb of his elders who were quick to downplay his accomplishments.

Froissart-JohnBall-BL-Royal 18 E I f. 165v

But it wasn’t until I unearthed the whole Lords Appellant episode that I understood how Richard’s personality got warped. He lost everyone who was important to him—except for his wife—and was humiliated to the point of almost losing his crown. No wonder he felt the need to wreak revenge. It’s a marvel he waited so long. I believe the untimely death of Queen Anne removed the most effective brake on his unwholesome tendencies.

So Shakespeare, who began his play with the famous scene where Bolingbroke and Mowbray accused each other of treason, showed us the beginning of the end. Their unfortunate quarrel gave Richard the opportunity to get rid of the last two Appellants who almost destroyed his kingship. He had already taken his revenge on the other three, the Duke of Gloucester (whose unavenged murder is referenced several times in the play without explanation), the Earl of Arundel (who was executed) and the Earl of Warwick (who was degraded and imprisoned). Exiling Bolingbroke and Mowbray gave Richard great satisfaction, and Gaunt’s death shortly thereafter clinched his triumph when he confiscated Bolingbroke’s inheritance.

I always wondered whether the Elizabethans knew the history behind Shakespeare’s plays (for instance, did they know Banquo in Macbeth was the ancestor of the Stewarts?). In Richard II’s case, the play works as it is very well, but a knowledge of its background makes it even more comprehensible. I watched the play often while writing this book (and afterwards), and each time I saw it I caught something new. Needless to say, the same qualifies for Henry IV, as I was soon to discover!

Thank you so much for sharing. I think Shakespeare has a lot to be blamed for. His tendency to play around with details of the past is as fascinating as the events he depicts. Good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants’ Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost. Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding. The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless. He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects. Richard’s inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.

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Meet the Author

Mercedes Rochelle is an ardent lover of medieval history, and has channeled this interest into fiction writing. Her first four books cover eleventh-century Britain and events surrounding the Norman Conquest of England. The next series is called The Plantagenet Legacy about the struggles and abdication of Richard II, leading to the troubled reigns of the Lancastrian Kings. She also writes a blog: HistoricalBritainBlog.com to explore the history behind the story. Born in St. Louis, MO, she received by BA in Literature at the Univ. of Missouri St.Louis in 1979 then moved to New York in 1982 while in her mid-20s to “see the world”. The search hasn’t ended! Today she lives in Sergeantsville, NJ with her husband in a log home they had built themselves.

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Don’t forget to check out the other stops on the A King Under Siege blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Today, I’m welcoming Rob Samborn to the blog with his new book, The Prisoner of Paradise

Your book, The Prisoner of Paradise, sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

Thank you for having me on your blog, MJ. I love this question. To answer, I need to provide some background on my book.

The Prisoner of Paradise is a thriller blended with historical fiction and magical realism, about Nick and Julia O’Connor, an American couple who travel to Venice, Italy.

After experiencing a traumatic head injury, Nick comes to believe that his true soul mate is not his wife, but a woman who has been trapped in Paradise, the world’s largest oil painting, created by Jacopo Tintoretto in 1592.

Though Julia is understandably concerned for Nick’s welfare and wants to return home, Nick is adamant he has a connection with the woman in Paradise. He discovers an ancient secret society that developed a method of extracting people’s souls from their bodies. They trap the souls—which they claim are evil—in the two-dimensional prison.

Nick will do anything to free his soul mate, but freeing her means freeing all the souls—and the secret society will never let that happen.

So, where did the idea come from?

The kernel of the idea for The Prisoner of Paradise sprouted in Venice itself. If you’ve never been there, Venice is one of the most magical cities on the planet, even when it’s the height of summer and inundated with tourists. In low season, it’s not only magical but mysterious.

The city is one thousand years old and built in a lagoon. Marble buildings, sidewalks, squares (piazzas) and everything else are resting on top of millions of petrified wooden pylons.

Cars and any wheeled vehicles are prohibited.

The only mode of transportation is by boat or foot. There are dozens of bridges and the winding, maze-like streets are often just a few feet wide.

Add to that a remarkably colorful history filled with legendary artists, architects, and events, and you have a story around every corner.

One of these artists was Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto. So prolific, he was known as “The Furious Painter.”

His work is all over Venice but the best places to see it are The Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace) and Scuola Grande di San Rocco (School of St. Roch).

The Scuola features dozens of Tintoretto paintings and many of them are mammoth in scale, including The Crucifixion, which includes nearly one hundred individuals of all ages, genders and races. While researching, I later discovered Paradise, a painting that includes thousands of people. The images are so lifelike, each could be an individual portrait.

It’s no secret that artists use models but I started wondering to what extent. Did Tintoretto have a line of people outside his studio? Unlikely.

Did he create each one from his head?

Who were these people? Why were they chosen to be immortalized?

These questions led to an idea…

Perhaps their souls were in the painting and their likenesses painted over their ethereal selves. And they were immortalized not for veneration, but rather imprisoned for all the world to see.

And a story was born…

To learn more about The Prisoner of Paradise or to find purchase locations, visit www.robsamborn.com.

Here’s the blurb:

The world’s largest oil painting. A 400-year-old murder. A disembodied whisper: “Amore mio.” My love.

Nick and Julia O’Connor’s dream trip to Venice collapses when a haunting voice reaches out to Nick from Tintoretto’s Paradise, a monumental depiction of Heaven. Convinced his delusions are the result of a concussion, Julia insists her husband see a doctor, though Nick is adamant the voice was real.

Blacking out in the museum, Nick flashes back to a life as a 16th century Venetian peasant swordsman. He recalls precisely who the voice belongs to: Isabella Scalfini, a married aristocrat he was tasked to seduce but with whom he instead found true love. A love stolen from them hundreds of years prior.

She implores Nick to liberate her from a powerful order of religious vigilantes who judge and sentence souls to the canvas for eternity. Releasing Isabella also means unleashing thousands of other imprisoned souls, all of which the order claims are evil.

As infatuation with a possible hallucination clouds his commitment to a present-day wife, Nick’s past self takes over. Wracked with guilt, he can no longer allow Isabella to remain tormented, despite the consequences. He must right an age-old wrong – destroy the painting and free his soul mate. But the order will eradicate anyone who threatens their ethereal prison and their control over Venice.

Trigger Warnings.

Violence, a rape scene, a torture scene.

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Meet the author

In addition to being a novelist, Rob Samborn is a screenwriter, entrepreneur and avid traveler. He’s been to forty countries, lived in five of them and studied nine languages. As a restless spirit who can’t remember the last time he was bored, Rob is on a quest to explore the intricacies of our world and try his hand at a multitude of crafts; he’s also an accomplished artist and musician, as well as a budding furniture maker. A native New Yorker who lived in Los Angeles for twenty years, he now makes his home in Denver with his wife, daughter and dog.

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Don’t forget to check out the other stops on The Prisoner of Paradise blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club

Today, I’m welcoming Susan Higginbotham to the blog with her new book, John Brown’s Women

Your book, John Brown’s Women , sounds fascinating. Can you share with me what the first idea was that made you decide to write this story? It might be very different from how the story ended up being, but I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing. And, if the story is very different, would you mind sharing the process by which you ended up with your current novel?

For example, my current book started off after watching an old Pathe TV show about making motorbikes and sidecars and has ended up as a 1940s mystery involving an unidentified body!

As a writer of biographical historical fiction, I seldom think up an idea for a novel out of the blue. Rather, something I read triggers me to learn more about a historical figure. In most cases, my curiosity having been sated, I move on, but in others, the character latches on to me and won’t give me any peace until I write about him or her.

My interest in John Brown was awakened when I moved a few years ago to a town in Maryland that’s just a few miles from Harpers Ferry. (Sadly, John Brown appears to have passed it by.) I dug out the family copy of Midnight Rising, Tony Horwitz’s gripping account of the Harpers Ferry raid, and was struck by one figure in particular—Annie, John Brown’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who served as her father’s lookout at the Maryland farm that Brown rented in preparation for the raid. Although most accounts of the raid touch on Annie’s role, Horwitz gave her more sustained attention, and I determined to learn more about her. Fortunately, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz has written a study of the Brown women, The Tie That Bound Us, and that led me to more information about Annie. Though Annie never published an account of her activities, she was generous in responding to Brown’s biographers, and her reminiscences and letters made for fascinating reading. Annie had an opinion on everything and a talent for pithy observations, and I was captivated by her. Writing to researcher Katherine Mayo in 1909, Annie spoke of her need to get off by herself in natural surroundings: “I always come back refreshed and with a better feeling towards God and the human race, for I do really sometimes get out of patience with Him and wonder why he created so many people that (it seems to me) would have been better left unborn. I have never been able to understand, why so many things, that ought not to be, exist.”

But as I began to research Annie’s story and to read more family letters: two other women intruded: Mary, John Brown’s stoic, strong wife, and refined, progressively-minded Wealthy, married to John Brown’s oldest son. They too wanted their stories told. Moreover, giving them leading roles would allow me to give a fuller view of John Brown. Mary had shared personal tragedies and financial setbacks with her husband, and Wealthy had been with the Brown men during the violent “Bleeding Kansas” years that set the stage for the Harpers Ferry raid. I ended up framing the novel so it begins and ends from Mary’s perspective, which I think worked artistically.

So Annie, no doubt to her chagrin, ended up having to share her story with others, as did Frances Brandon in my Tudor novel, Her Highness the Traitor, who found herself narrating alongside Jane Dudley. But Annie supplied me with the epigraph, giving her the first word, if not the last.

Wealthy Brown (West Virginia State Archives)

Thank you so much for sharing. I love it when characters have such a strong mind of their own. Good luck with the new book.

Here’s the blurb:

As the United States wrestles with its besetting sin—slavery—abolitionist John Brown is growing tired of talk. He takes actions that will propel the nation toward civil war and thrust three courageous women into history.

Wealthy Brown, married to John Brown’s oldest son, eagerly falls in with her husband’s plan to settle in Kansas. Amid clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers, Wealthy’s adventure turns into madness, mayhem, and murder.

Fifteen-year-old Annie Brown is thrilled when her father summons her to the farm he has rented in preparation for his raid. There, she guards her father’s secrets while risking her heart.

Mary Brown never expected to be the wife of John Brown, much less the wife of a martyr. When her husband’s daring plan fails, Mary must travel into hostile territory, where she finds the eyes of the nation riveted upon John—and upon her.

Spanning three decades, John Brown’s Women is a tale of love and sacrifice, and of the ongoing struggle for America to achieve its promise of liberty and justice for all.

Trigger Warnings:

Deaths of young children through illness or accidents (not graphically described); implied heavy petting involving a willing minor.

Buy Links:

Amazon:

Meet the Author

Susan Higginbotham is the author of a number of historical novels set in medieval and Tudor England and, more recently, nineteenth-century America, including The Traitor’s Wife, The Stolen Crown, Hanging Mary, and The First Lady and the Rebel. She and her family, human and four-footed, live in Maryland, just a short drive from where John Brown made his last stand. When not writing or procrastinating, Susan enjoys traveling and collecting old photographs.