Today, on the UK publication of THE COMING OF THE WOLF I thought I would post a history of how the novel came to be. It’s a short article but a long story, and it wouldn’t be here if not for all my lovely readers – thank you!
I began writing The Coming of the Wolf when my youngest son was a baby. I had already written six previous historical novels, part of an ongoing family saga, and I still have them in ring binders in my study cupboard.
I was keen to be published, but writing historical fiction was my hobby too, and I wrote for pure enjoyment, for escapism, and as a means of taking time out from the world. I was fifteen when I began work on my first full length historical novel, initially inspired by the BBC children’s series ‘Desert Crusader’ but quickly developing a life of its own. It took me about a year, writing by hand in spare school exercise books. Then, wanting my efforts to look more like a ‘proper’ book, I went to night classes to learn to touch type and asked for a typewriter for my eighteenth birthday. I edited and rewrote my first novel as a typescript and embarked on sequels, learning my craft and maturing as I went. I sent the novels to publishers and received rejections, but it didn’t matter. I was learning, I was improving, and I felt that at some point I would be published. Even if I wasn’t, I was still doing what I loved, so nothing was wasted.
When creating The Coming of the Wolf, my seventh, I abandoned my long running family saga, although I remained in the medieval period. For some time, I had been throwing an idea around, inspired by the historical novels I had been reading. Their content had made me start thinking about how the story could be changed up by introducing different historical facets. The books I had read set in the period of the Norman Conquest usually took their romantic and dramatic conflict from the Norman invaders versus the brave, rebellious English. Although interesting, I felt it was something of a cliché and I could bring increased nuance to the drama by adding something new to the mix.
Another strand of my thinking was added to the weave during a holiday to Wales. We had driven through parts of the Welsh borders where the history and landmarks had left a legacy from the time of King Edward the Confessor who had invited Norman military families to come to the border lands and settle there. Men such as Richard FitzScrob built the first mottle and Bailey castles in the UK to act as protective lookout posts on the edges of disputed territory. Such forts were both defensive sites and outposts of military aggression. To my author’s mind, the situation immediately increased the conflict. Now, instead of only two sides, Norman and English, it became a triangle as the Welsh joined the play. Add inter-marriage between the factions and a whole jumble of shifting alliances and loyalties and here was a perfect landscape for heightened drama and conflict.
My hero, Miles, I decided, would be a son of a settler Norman who had taken as a wife, a woman of the Welsh nobility in order to cement a political alliance. It was his second marriage, his first having been in Normandy, and he already had several other sons from that relationship, at least one of whom would have a prominent role. I now had a half-Norman, half-Welsh hero with a stake in the land prior to the invasion of 1066 because of Edward the Confessor’s invitation. Relationships with the English, I decided, would be neutrally cordial.
My heroine, Christen, would be English with a rebellious relative who had fought for King Harold at Hastings in 1066. Circumstances would draw her and Miles together in a situation of adversity where they would have to come to terms with each other while facing great danger, hostility toward them from all sides, and some hard, political realities.
Some authors write a detailed synopsis when planning their novel, and know chapter by chapter what is going to happen. In later years, writing about real people, I go down that route, but with my earlier novels I would begin with a general idea and run with it to see where it took me. The Coming of the Wolf was one of those chalk picture novels that led me over the hills and far away.
I submitted it to a literary agent, and received a rejection – partly my own fault for not doing my research in more depth. I had applied to the agency because the description said they dealt with commercial adult fiction. However, in this case, the word “adult” had certain connotations that I had misunderstood! Rather than send it out again, I shelved The Coming of the Wolf and pressed on with writing its sequel, The Wild Hunt. The rest, as they say, is history. With better research this time, I submitted The Wild Hunt to Carole Blake at the Blake Friedmann Agency, she loved it, took me on, and sold the novel at auction in a bidding war between four publishing houses. My foot was finally in the door. The Wild Hunt went on to win an award, has sold around the world and is still in print.
The Coming of the Wolf was offered to my new editor at the time, but the mood was to go forward and we ended up with a sequel rather than a prequel. However, I have always known that The Coming of the Wolf was unfinished business. I had written it on an old Amstrad ‘Greenscreen’ and in moments of spare time, I began writing it onto a modern computer, editing as I went. I put a couple of chapters online for the readers and immediately people began asking for the rest of the story. Spurred on, I edited the work again and sent it to my agent. if the time was not right before, now it certainly was. It has been a long time coming, but it is wonderful to have The Coming of the Wolf join my other novels and take its rightful place beside The Wild Hunt and its sequels, The Running Vixen and The Leopard Unleashed.
