Bluebells by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary and her books please click the image above.

Bluebells

Blessed with a vivid imagination, at the back of my mind I have an idea for a garden which plays a prominent part in a novel so I’ve been jotting down ideas. Like me, my heroine will rejoice when spring arrives, and she welcomes the blaze of colour from crocus, daffodils and narcissi. This month I welcome bluebells, enchanting flowers that bloom in gardens and beneath canopies of woodland trees.

As a child I buried my face in bunches of these fragrant flowers which I gave to my mother. Arranged in vases their bewitching scent seemed to cast a spell.  I remember picking bluebells which filled a room with bewitching perfume when my mother arranged them in a vase.one of many names for bluebells is ‘fairy flower’.

‘Fairy flowers’ are one of many nicknames for bluebells. In my fertile imagination I visualise them imagine their sweet perfume casting a spell over people walking in woodland. Folk law claims a carpet of bluebells in full flower indicates a magical place where fairies live. If I close my eyes, in my mind’s eyes I can see a delightful picture of a bluebell flower fairy.

According to legend, fairies are reputed to cast spells on the flowers left to dry if they are disturbed. Long ago children were told that if they picked bluebells they would be spirited away, and adults would be fated to wander forever in the woods. If an unlucky person heard the fairies ring bluebells when they gathered, he or she would soon die. A reason to nick name the flowers ‘dead men’s bells’.

Bluebells are toxic to those ancient myths discouraged people from touching them.  About half of the world’s bluebells grow in the U.K, and usually inhabit four-hundred years or more woodland. Not only do we look admiringly at them they attract bees, butterflies, and hoverflies. .

 

The Cinderella Princess The Future Queen Anne Stuart Part Three By Rosemary Morris

 

To explore more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.

Author’s Note. At heart I am a historian. Before I begin writing a #classi#historical#omance I research the background. I hope you will enjoy this month’s insider blog based on my notes.

Twelve year old Sarah Jennings, daughter of a landed gentleman who would play such a crucial role Princess Anne’s life, was appointed as one of her attendants. Years later Sara wrote: We had used to play together when she was a child and she even then expressed a particular fondness for me. The motherless princess living in the shadow of her older, cleverer sister, Mary, and her governess’s daughters became deeply attached to Sarah.

Anne was pretty with plump features, red-brown hair, and her mother’s elegant hands, which she was immensely proud of. A shy, easily ignored child she was aware of her short-comings – her poor education did nothing to boost her confidence. Sarah said years later:  Your Majesty has had the misfortune to be misinformed in general things even from twelve years old.  There was no reason to provide Anne and her sister with  better education because it was probable the Queen would bear an heir to the throne. During Anne’s life  few women could read and write. Little more than dancing, drawing, French, and music were required to prepare Anne for life at court. Her general education was neglected but her religious education was rigorous and laid the foundation for her lifelong adherence to the Anglican faith.

Anne and Mary lived apart from the court at Whitehall, their indulgent Roman Catholic father and stepmother.  Expected to be virtuous, the sisters must have been aware of the licentiousness at their uncle’s court and their uncle, the king, and their father acknowledged illegitimate children.

King Charles II was interested in Anne, who would be one of the best guitar players at court. Her voice was pleasing so he ordered the actress, Mrs Barry, to give his nieces elocution lessons. They benefitted Anne when she took part in masques and plays popular at court and, as queen, when she addressed parliament.

Anne and Mary grew up in the company of clerics and women, secluded from Whitehall with little to entertain them. They suffered boring conversations, stifling small rooms, and endless card games. Sarah declared:  I wished myself out of Court as much as I had desired to come into it before I knew what it was. Despite tedium and whatever storms lay ahead, Anne loved her sister. So much that when Mary married her Dutch cousin, William of Orange, in 1677, while Anne had smallpox, her father ordered that she should not be told her sister had departed for the Continent.

While Anne’s tutor fretted in case her fanatical Roman Catholic nurse influenced her when Anne was ill,  she recovered, Anne had to cope with the death of her governess. Fortunately, she still had Sarah’s  companionship and they enjoyed the vast grounds of Richmond Palace, leased by the king for his nieces.  This tranquillity. It is reasonable to suppose her mind was  occupied with thoughts of who she would marry.

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Rosemary Morris’ #classic#historical#romance novels set in Queen Anne Stuart’s reign – 1702-1714

 

Far Beyond Rubies

Tangled Love

The Captain and The Countess

The Viscount and The Orphan

 

https://bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary

 

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

The Cinderella Princess. Anne Stuart Future Queen of England 1702-1714 Part Two by Rosemary Morris

 

To find out more about Rosemary's stories click on the cover.

Author’s Note. At heart I am a historian. Before I begin writing a #classi#historical#omance I research the background. I hope you will enjoy this month’s insider blog based on my notes.

Princess Anne was six years old when her mother died in 1671. Her father, James, Duke of York, had taken the unpopular decision to become a Roman Catholic. Her uncle, the childless King Charles II, knew politics demanded his heirs, Anne and her elder sister, Mary, were Protestants. He appointed Lady Frances Villiers, a committed Anglican, as their governess and leased Richmond Palace, where his nieces would live, to Frances and her husband.

The princesses benefited from country air and were privileged to live by the Thames at a time when, due to bad roads, the river was important.

Anne’s indulgent father visited his daughters regularly, showered them with gifts and often stayed for several nights at Richmond Palace. Yet all was not well with the family. In 1673, the Test Act excluded anyone who did not take communion in the Anglican Church from public office, James was forced to resign as Lord High Admiral and give up his other official positions. In an era with fervent religious allegiances, I wonder what effect religious controversy had on Anne, a stubborn child.

What did she think when her father married fifteen year old Mary of Braganza? History relates James was captivated by his bride. Looking at a copy of her portrait, I’m not surprised. She was tall with a good figure, jet black hair, a fair skin, and large eyes her contemporaries at court described as ‘full of sweetness and light’. The proud bridegroom introduced his new wife to his daughters as a ‘playmate’. Anne formed a bond, not with her stepmother, whose children would be raised in the Roman Catholic faith, but with vivacious Sarah Churchill, who would have a profound influence on Anne.

Granddaughter of tragic King Charles 1 how would her life develop?

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Rosemary Morris’#classic#historical#romance fiction set in Queen Anne Stuart’s reign 1702-1714

 

Far Beyond Rubies

Tangled Love

The Captain and The Countess

The Viscount and The Orphan

 With firmly closed bedroom doors, the reader can relish the details of emerging romances.

 

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To purchase my novels choose an online click onto the book cover to choose an online bookstore at https:bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary.

The Cinderella Princess. Anne Stuart Future Queen of England Part One by Rosemary Morris

 

To learn more about Rosemary and her work please click on the cover.

At heart I am a historian. Before I begin writing a #classi#historical#omance I research the background. I hope you will enjoy this month’s insider blog based on my notes.

When Anne, Stuart was born on the 6^th February1665 neither her uncle, the second King Charles, nor her father, James, heir to the throne, imagined she would become Queen. The king’s seven illegitimate children proved his virility. There was every reason to believe he and his queen Henrietta Maria who he married three years ago, would not have legitimate heirs If they did not, James and Anne, the Duke and Duchess of York’s son would succeed. Unfortunately, he only lived for six months.

Infant mortality was high. Fortunately, Anne and her older sister, Mary, survived the Great Plague, which broke out in the year of the Cinderella’s birth. The little princesses grew up in their nursery but their brother James, a younger brother and two little sisters died. One can imagine the effects of these deaths on a small girl suffering from poor health, whose weak eyes watered constantly.

With the consent of Anne’s uncle, the king, her parents sent the four-year-old to her grandmother, widow of the executed first Charles, who now lived in France, to have her eyes treated.

A portrait of the Anne as a small girl painted by an unknown artist at the French Court depicts a plump, adorable little girl, dressed in brocade and playing with a King Charles spaniel. Yet her eyes, set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow, are wary.

 

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Rosemary Morris’ #classic#historical#romance novels set in Queen Anne Stuart’s reign – 1702 -1714

 

Far Beyond Rubies.

Tangled Love

The Captain and The Countess

The Viscount and The Orphan

 

With firmly closed bedroom doors, the reader can relish the details of emerging romances.

 

* * *

 

 

To purchase my novels choose an online click onto the book cover to choose an online bookstore at https:bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary.

 

To read the first three chapters please visit my website. www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

The Scarlet Pimpernel ~ Baroness Orczy ~ Fact and Fiction By Rosemary Morris

 

To learn more about Rosemary please click on the image above.

“They seek him here, they seek him there,

Those French men seek him everywhere.

   Is he in Heaven? – Is he in hell?

       That damned annoying Pimpernel.”

The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy’s most famous character, is Percy, the gallant daredevil, Sir Percival Blakeney Bart, the hero of her novels and short stories set during The French Revolution, aptly nick-named The Reign of Terror.   

Orczy was a royalist with no sympathy for the merciless Jacobins who spared no efforts to achieve their political ambitions.  Historical accounts prove everyone in France was at risk of being arrested and sent to the guillotine. Orczy’s works of fiction about the Scarlet Pimpernel display her detailed knowledge about Revolutionary France and capture the miserable atmosphere which prevailed in that era.

Waiting for a train the author saw Sir Percy dressed in the exquisite clothes of a late 18th century gentleman, noted the monocle he held up in his slender hand, heard his lazy drawl and quaint laugh.

In August1792, Percy founded his gallant League of Gentlemen. Eventually, there was “one to command and nineteen to obey.” Percy and his league cheated French Revolutionary Government’s tool, Madame Guillotine of their prey. London’s high society speculated about the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity.

Percy, an influential, wealthy nobleman man married Marguerite St. Just, a French actress. When he discovered she was responsible for an aristocratic family’s death, for fear she would betray him, he kept his alias secret. Loving Marguerite, despite her crime he feigned indifference, treated her coldly, shunned her company, and acted a fool’s part so successfully that he bored her. However, Marguerite discovered the truth about Percy and saved his life. After the couple’s reconciliation, Marguerite is mentioned as a member of the league in Mam’zelle Guillotine.

At the beginning of each of the series the current events are summarised. Orczy weaves fact and fiction by featuring English and French historical figures such as Robespierre, d’Herbois, the Prince of Wales, and Sir William Pitt, the younger, and historical events. For example, in Eldorado Orczy describes the Dauphin in the care of brutal shoemaker, Simon, who teaches the prince to curse God and his parents. 

In the horror, depicted in her novels, Orczy uses romance and heroism to defeat evil, as she did as a child when playing the part of a fearless prince while her sister acted the part of a damsel in distress.

Orczy spent 1900 in Paris that, in her ears, echoed with the horrors of the French Revolution.  Surely, she had found the setting for her magnificent hero The Scarlet Pimpernel, who would champion the victims of The Terror, but why did she choose an insignificant flower for Percy’s alias? It is not unreasonable to suppose a Parisian royalist organisation’s triangular cards, hand painted with roses that resemble scarlet pimpernels, fuelled Orczy’s imagination.  Further fuel might have been added by a young man called Louis Bayard with similarities to the Sir Percy Blakeney Bart’s life. And the author’s imagination might have  been ignited by nineteen-year old Louis Bayard engaged by William Wickham, the first British spymaster. Louis as elusive as Percy, also had many aliases, and fell in love with an actress. Both appeared and disappeared without causing comment.  Real life Louis’ and fictional Percy’s lives depended on being masters of disguise. 

In disguise, Percy fools his archenemy, Citizen Chauvelin, who Orczy gives the role of official French Ambassador to England in an interesting example of her distortion of historical personalities and incidents. It is doubtful whether Bernard-Francois, Marquis de Chauvelin, ever assumed a false identity as he did in Orczy’s novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Another example is Louis-Antoine St Just, a revolutionary, who Orczy gives the role of  Marguerite’s cousin. Louis-Antoine St Just, a young lawyer, was Maximillian Robespierre’s follower. He supported the punishment of traitors and of anyone who was a ‘lukewarm’ revolutionary.  In The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel  her character, Armand St Just, Marguerite’s brother, meets with Robespierre and other Jacobins. Orczy portrays him as young, fervent, and articulate as the Louis-Antoine St Just.

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Of Further Interest, The Scarlet Pimpernel series, Links in the Chain of Life,  Baroness Orczy’s biography. A Gay Adventurer. A biography of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart written by ‘John Blakeney’ pseudonym of Baroness Orczy’s son John Montagu Baron Orczy Barstow.

The links to online bookstores to buy Rosemary Morris’s   novels are at:

https://bookswelove.net/morris-rosemary/

 

The first three chapters of each of my novels may be read on my web site.

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

 

Baroness Orczy by Rosemary Morris

 

To learn more about Rosemary's work please click the cover.

 Baroness Orczy

 

I am a fan of Baroness Orczy, who is remembered for her novels about Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet, aka the Scarlet Pimpernel. Curious about her life and times I wrote this blog, which I hope you will enjoy.

 

     Baroness Orczy was born in Tarna Ors, Hungary, on September twenty-third, eighteen hundred and sixty-five to Countess Emma Wass and her husband Baron Felix Orczy. Her parents frequented the magnificent court of the Austrian Hungarian Empire where the baron was well known as a composer, conductor, and friend of famous composers, among others, Liszt, and Wagner.

Until the age of five, when a mob of peasants fired the barn, stables and fields destroying the crops, Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála “Emmuska” Orczy, enjoyed luxury in her father’s magnificent, ancestral chateau. Later she described it as a rambling farmhouse on the banks of the River Tarna. She and her family lived there in magnificent ‘medieval style.’  Throughout her life the exuberant parties, the dancing and the haunting gypsy music lived on in her memory.

After leaving Tarna Ors forever, the Orczys went to Budapest. Subsequently, afraid of a national uprising, the baron moved his family from Hungary to Belgium.

Emmuska attended convent schools in Brussels and Paris until eighteen hundred and eighty when her the baron settled his family in Wimpole Street, London.

 In six months, fifteen-year-old Emmuska learned English for which she won a special prize. Afterward, she attended the West London School of Art and then Heatherby’s School of Art. Baron Orczy tried hard to develop his daughter’s musical talent, but Emmuska chose art, and had the satisfaction of her work being exhibited at The Royal Academy. Subsequently, she became an author.

She fell in love with England and regarded it as her spiritual birthplace, her true home. When people referred to her as a foreigner, she said there was nothing English about her, and that her love was all English, for she loved the country

In eighteen hundred and ninety-four Emmuska married Montague Barstow, an illustrator, whom she met had net at Heatherby’s. In her own words, their marriage was happy and joyful.

The newlyweds enjoyed opera, art exhibitions, concerts, and the theatre.

Emmuska’s bridegroom encouraged her to write. In eighteen hundred and ninety-five her translations of Old Hungarian Fairy Tales: The Enchanted Cat, Fairyland’s Beauty, and Uletka and The White Lizard, edited with Montague’s help, were published.

Inspired by thrillers she watched on stage, Emmuska wrote mystery and detective stories. The first featured The Old Man in the Corner. For the generous payment of sixty pounds the Royal Magazine published it in 1901. Her stories were an instant hit. Yet, although the public could not get enough of them, she remained dissatisfied.

In her autobiography Emmuska wrote, I felt inside my heart a kind of stirring that the writing of sensational stuff for magazines would not and should not, be the end and aim of my ambition. I wanted to do something more than that. Something big.

Montague and Emmuska spent nineteen hundred in Paris that, in her ears, echoed with the violence of the French Revolution. Surely, she had found the setting for a magnificent hero to champion the victims of “The Terror.” Unexpectedly, after she and her husband returned to England, while waiting for a train, Emmuska saw her most famous hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, dressed in exquisite clothes. She noted the monocle held up in his slender hand, heard his lazy drawl, and quaint laugh. Emmuska told her husband about the incident. In five weeks, she wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel. More than a dozen publishers rejected it. They wanted modern, true-life novels. Undeterred Emmuska and Montague turned the novel into a play. The critics did not care for it when it opened at the New Theatre, London in nineteen hundred and four, but the audiences loved it, and it ran for two thousand performances. The Scarlet Pimpernel was published and became the blockbuster of its era making it possible for Emmuska and Montague to live in an estate in Kent, have a bustling London home and buy a luxurious villa in Monte Carlo.

During the next thirty five years, Emmuska wrote sequels, among which are Lord Tony’s Wife, in nineteen hundred and seventeen, The League of The Scarlet Pimpernel in nineteen hundred and nineteen, and other historical and crime novels. Her loyal fans repaid her by flocking to the first of several films about her gallant hero. Released in nineteen hundred and thirty-five, it was produced by her compatriot, Alexander Korda, starred Lesley Howard as Percy, and Merle Oberon as Marguerite.

 Emmuska and Montague moved to Monte Carlo in the late nineteen hundred and tens where they remained during the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.

Montague died in nineteen hundred and forty-three leaving Emmuska bereft. She lived with her only son and divided her time between London and Monte Carlo. Her last novel Will-O’theWisp and her autobiography, Links in the Chain of Life were both published in nineteen hundred and forty-seven shortly before her death at the age of eight-two on November the twelfth, in the same year.

A lasting tribute to the baroness is the enduring affection the public still has for her brave, romantic hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, master of disguise.

 The links to online bookstores to buy Rosemary Morris’s   novels are at:

 https://bookswelove.net/morris-rosemary/

 The first three chapters of each novel may be read on my web site.

 www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Thoughts About Writing Novels by Rosemary Morris

 

To learn more about Rosemary's work please click on the image above.

If I had a pound from every person who said he or she could write a novel it would add a worthwhile sum to my income. At a party, a man I met for the first time found out I am a published novelist. He pursued me relentlessly to find out how to be published. Years ago, he wrote a textbook and now wants to write fiction. I became more exasperated by his belief that I could give him the means to write a novel and find a literary agent or publisher.

“There is only one way to succeed,” I said, trying to conceal my irritation.

“What?” he asked eagerly, obviously thinking that I have a magic formula.

I resisted the temptation to say: ‘Get on with it instead of talking about it’.

“Write,” I told him.

Writing is demanding work. It requires dedication. Except for Christmas Day, I get up at 6 a.m. With a short break to eat breakfast I work until 10.a.m. After dealing with mundane tasks, working in my organic garden, and cooking, etc., I write form 4pm to 8p.m. with a short break for afternoon tea.

During the hours set aside to concentrate on my career as a novelist, I divide my time between writing, research, dealing with business, receiving, and answering e-mails, working with on-line constructive critique partners, and publicising my books.

Among other activities related to writing, before covid struck I attended a writers ‘group where I met published and unpublished writers. Members read extracts from their novels, non-fiction, poetry etc., and received useful feedback.

If someone chats to me about finding time to write, my advice is to have a routine, whether it is as little as fifteen minutes every day carved out from a busy life, or time set aside to write once a week. The important thing is the routine which separates real authors from would be ones.

Rosemary Morris’s novels

 

Medieval novels set in Edward II’s reign.

Yvonne, Lady of Cassio

Grace, Lady of Cassio

Early 18^th century novels set in Queen Anne Stuart’s reign, 1702-1714.

Far Beyond Rubies

Tangled Love

The Captain and The Countess

The Viscount and The Orphan to be published soon.

Regency novels.

False Pretences.

Loosely Connected series which do not need to be read in sequence.

Sunday’s Child

Monday’s Child

Tuesday’s Child,

Wednesday’s Child

Thursday’s Child

Friday’s Child

Saturday’s Child

 

The first three chapters of each novel may be read on my web site. www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

 

Links to online bookstores. http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

Thoughts About Writing A Novel ~ Theme by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary and her work please click on the image above.

Thoughts about Writing a Novel - Theme

 

The theme of a novel is different to the plot. It is the subject. The plot is action, it shows the reader what happens and answers the questions, Who, What, When, Where and How. The theme is often abstract and drives the plot forward. It might focus on the cause of conflict or a main character’s goals. An effective theme should not overpower the plot. It should be used as a background - the characters’ experience, the author’s individual style and word pictures which tie theme and plot together. The beginning of the novel should indicate the theme.

Some themes can be applied to any time and at any place e.g., conflict between family members, others are specific such as an event that could only take place in a country during a particular time, for example, the London Blitz in the 2^nd World War or an issue such as women’s suffrage. Religious intolerance or another form of intolerance also provide strong themes.

Emotion is a thread which can run through a novel and be employed as a theme that creates conflict, for example, any one of the following, fear, greed, hatred, jealousy, loneliness, love, revenge.

Explicit sex is also a theme but, although my novels are sensual, it is not one of my chosen ones.

www.rosemarymorris.

 

Rosemary Morris published by BooksWeLove

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

 

 

Thoughts About How to Write A Novel by Rosemary Morris

 

To discover more about Rosemary please click on the image above.

Thoughts About How to Write a Novel

 

I can’t remember how many times people have told me they would write a novel if they had time. Serious authors, published or unpublished, find time. It is important to establish a routine. I recommend an achievable schedule, fifteen minutes or more a day, a fixed period at the weekends, or writing a set number of words every day.

If you have an idea, don’t dream about writing. Begin with the first sentence and continue to the end. Then revise and edit the drafts until the final one, in the correct format, is ready to submit to an agent or publisher. If your novel is rejected, don’t be discouraged, either polish your novel or begin a new one.

I wrote eight novels before one was accepted. By then, I knew more about how to write. I revised five of my earlier novels. Each year, I submitted one to the Romantic Novelists Association for a reader’s report. Subsequently, each novel was accepted for publication.

Whatever you write requires self-discipline and determination. Suppose you aim to write a novel which is 75,000 words. If you write 1,000 words a day you will finish the first draft in 75 days. If you write 500 words a day you will finish it in 150 days.

No matter how good our ideas are, we need to master the art of writing.  Showing the reader what happens instead of telling is important.

 For example, the following tells the reader what happened, but it is not interesting.

‘Zoe was crying because she fell over and scraped her knees.’ 

The revised sentence shows what happened.

‘Zoe raced down the hill after her ball. She ran faster, slipped, and scraped her knees on the pavement. Blood poured down her legs. She burst into tears.”

Our first drafts require revision in which we show instead of telling. Also, we must check the spelling and grammar, and, to avoid repetition, Use the following words, which tell instead of showing, with caution. As, as if, has, has been, had, had been, very, was, said, was and were.

Check to make sure words or phrases are not frequently repeated. For example, when editing a final draft, I realised my characters cleared their throats too often before they spoke, that I frequently described the expressions in their eyes, and the hero and heroine smiled repeatedly.

Research is important. We shouldn’t take anything for granted. If we get a fact wrong a reader might lose faith in us. If we write fantasy or science fiction, the world we create must be believable.

Books on How to Write, Writing Magazines, Courses and Workshops for Writers, a Writer’s Circle, which meets regularly and offers constructive criticism, and an online critique group can helpful.

It isn’t enough for us to have a good idea for an article, non-fiction book, a poem, a short story, novella, or a novel, we must write to the best of our ability.

 

To read my classical historical romances with twists in the tale, set in Edward II’s reign, Queen Anne Stuart’s reign, and the Regency era, please visit my website to read the first three chapters

 

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

 

Rosemary’s novels are available from Amazon and Books We Love Publishers:

https://bookswelove.net/morris-rosemary/

Writing Historical Fiction by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary and her work click on the image above.

Writing Historical Fiction

 

There is a hypothesis that there are only seven basic plots. This should not deter novelists, who can devise their own special twists in the tale and write from the heart.

What is Historical Fiction? The Historical Novel Society’s definition is: ‘The novel must have been written at least fifty years after the event, described, or written by someone who was not alive at the time, and who therefore only approached them by research.’

I think novelists, who set their books in times past, are under an obligation to readers to transport them into another time based on fact. My characters, other than historical figures, are imaginary. To ground my novels, I weave real events into my plots and themes. To recreate days gone by, I study non-fiction and, before covid, visited places of historical interest, including museums.

There are many excellent novelists who write, historical fiction and genre historical romance, etc. Unfortunately, there are others who cause me, and, presumably, other readers, to suspend belief. I was torn between shock and hysterical laughter when I read a medieval romance in which, the hero, a knight in full armour, galloped to a castle to rescue a proverbial maiden in distress. Without putting aside his shield and weapons, he flung himself off his horse and scaled stone walls with no handholds or footholds. He then climbed through a window - impossible as a castle in that era only had narrow apertures. When he gained access through the mythical window, not affected by her ideal the fair heroine asked: ‘Would you like some eggs and bacon and a nice cup of tea,’ as though she were offering him a modern-day English breakfast. The sense of the ridiculous overcame me. I lost faith in the author and did not read on.

Of course, the above is an extreme example from a novel accepted by a mainstream publisher. However, I am frequently disappointed by 21st characters dressed in costume, who have little in common with those who lived in previous eras. Over the centuries, emotions, anger, hate, jealousy, love etc., have not changed, but attitudes, clothes, the way of life and speech has. A historical novelist should study these and do their best to verify the facts.

Misnamed characters also make me pause when reading. The first pages of a medieval novel held my attention until I reached the part when the heroine’s name was Wendy, which, J. M. Barry invented for his novel Peter Pan. I daresay I’m not the only historical novelist, who agonises over characters’ names. I recommend The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, an invaluable resource.

In conclusion, a skilful historical novelist should hold the readers’ attention from the first page to the last and take them into the realm of fiction on an accurate, enjoyable journey.

 

 

http;//bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary

 

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk