I have a new three novel book deal that I can at last announce – hooray!
I have been sitting on this news for a little while during the time that all the contractual work has been going forward, but I am now officially thrilled to announce that I have agreed a new three book deal with my UK publisher LittleBrown on their Sphere imprint.
The first of three to be published is in fact a project begun many years ago when my sons were very small. THE COMING OF THE WOLF is actually a prequel to my first published novel THE WILD HUNT.
I was coming to the end of my long apprenticeship in the trenches when I wrote the story. I submitted it once, it was turned down, and I put it away in my cupboard with my other reject novels going back to my teens and embarked on the next one – THE WILD HUNT. This was taken on by leading London Literary agent Carole Blake at the Blake Friedmann Agency and sold at auction to Michael Joseph, part of the Penguin group. It went on to win a major award (presented to me by HRH Prince Charles) and sold in large quantities around the world. It’s still in print now. I offered the prequel, but it was felt at the time that THE WILD HUNT was the stronger novel and it was better to go forward than back. I agreed/was happy to go along with that. I had got my foot in the door of the career I had always wanted. But there was still something about THE COMING OF THE WOLF. It wouldn’t leave me alone. Over the years when I had a spare moment, I’d go and pick at it. I put a chapter on my website and readers said ‘More please!’ I often didn’t have time and months would pass. However, slowly, but surely I overhauled the work. Then overhauled it again, and again, increments at a time, but always heading toward the goal of having a finished, polished work in my hands. The structure had always been good and the storyline, but the writing had needed that extra time to grow up. The moment came to negotiate a new contract and I said ‘Oh, by the way, I do have this’ and handed in THE COMING OF THE WOLF. My UK publishers snapped it up as an extra on my contract and it is now going to be published next year on the 30th anniversary of the first publication of THE WILD HUNT. To the readers I say ‘I am sorry it has taken so long; you have been very patient and I want to thank you for giving me the goad and encouragement to take the work from the cupboard and overhaul it. Without your enthusiasm, I might have continued to let it ride and that would have been a loss for everyone I think. To fellow writers, I say Keep your older work. Overhaul it, change it, cannbalise it and learn from it because truly, nothing is ever lost.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT.
THE COMING OF THE WOLF is the story of Guyon FitzMiles’s parents, Miles le Gallois, and Christen his English wife. (Guyon is the hero of THE WILD HUNT). Miles is a Cambro-Norman scout in the employ of William The Conqueror, his back story off stage being that his father came to England in the reign of Edward the Confessor and took up a post on the Welsh Marches. His first Norman wife being dead, Miles’s father married a Welsh lord’s daughter and begot Miles. Miles has a foot in both the Welsh and Norman camps. Born in Wales, he has Norman half-siblings and has been raised mostly as a Norman.
Christen is an English young woman, married to Lyulph,an older English thegn of whom she is fond despite the age gap. When the novel opens, she and Lyulph are dwelling on the English side of the Welsh borders and coping with the aftermath of Hastings. Lyulph, injured at the earlier Battle of Stamford Bridge, did not fight at Hastings and it means his lands are still intact. Christen’s irresponsible brother Osric has turned rebel though, and threatens to bring disaster down on them in the form of Norman retribution, especially since he has just raided the lands of Miles le Gallois.
I deliberately chose the Welsh borders as a setting because it’s a frontier land and I wanted to explore the dynamic between the Welsh, the Normans and the English. The country was in a huge state of flux following the Battle of Hastings, and the border country made matters even more precarious.
THE SECOND NOVEL BUT NEW WRITING
The blazon of William de Valence, husband of Joanna, granddaughter of William Marshal
Whenever I begin a new project, (I make no excuses for repeating this) , I always interview my prospective characters and ask them ‘Why should I write about you? What can you tell me that you have never told anyone before?’ And if it’s the right project, they come and tell me and we embark on an amazing journey of discovery.
Last Autumn while contemplating my next writing project I picked up a book that I’d ordered a while back for my research shelves but hadn’t got around to reading. It was a biography of a 13th century noble woman who was the granddaughter of the great William Marshal. Her name was Joanna de Munchensey of Swanscombe and her mother had been William Marshal’s youngest daughter. The author of the biography, Linda Mitchell had researched Joanna’s life extensively and come to the conclusion that here was one of the most important women of the period whose inspirational and dramatic story has been mostly lost to the vagaries of time and often what was known had been warped out of true by historians, each building on the other’s opinions to build an edifice that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Joanna has often been demoted to a footnote and harshly judged by sweeping statements that bear little or no resemblance to the very different woman that Mitchell’s study has uncovered. Her Joanna de Valence (nee Munchensey) is a clever, vibrant, astute and highly intelligent lady. A woman too of firm family values and in later life, gossipy warmth. A formidable organiser, a wife, a mother, a helpmate and companion. She engaged in some fierce legal battles and land grabs with her relatives, but no more than they did to her, and she was certainly less ferocious in that respect than her sister by marriage Eleanor de Montfort.
The de Valence Casket, commissioned by a member of the de Valence Family in the late 13th century. Now on display in the V&A Museum.
The same biased vilification has been applied to Joanna’s husband, William de Valence, half-brother to Henry III. His reputation has suffered from a certain amount of character assassination that doesn’t hold up when one seeks beneath the surface (and I just love to dig for the facts). His negative aspects involved youthful rashness. He was a hot-headed teenager and young man with a penchant for tourneys and a flash lifestyle (coming to England and marrying a rich and beautiful heiress his own age was a bit like winning the lottery I think, and it rather went to his head!), but he had jealous rivals, including the queen, Eleanor of Provence, who were prepared to tarnish his reputation and cast him in the worst possible light. He and his brothers were viewed as ‘Foreign scum’ but much of that was the result of in-fighting. Henry III was extremely fond of his half-brothers, especially William, and there had to be a reason for this. Edward I was very fond of him too, and employed him extensively as a soldier and diplomat and adviser. Whatever the impetuous transgressions of his late teen years, William de Valence became a man of reason and high standing and is buried in a beautiful tomb in Westminster Abbey should you care to and visit.
Joanna, he addresses in a letter as his ‘Dearest friend and companion’ twenty years after their marriage and with a new daughter in the cradle. Ten years further on they were still sharing the same bed for their last born son, Aymer was born within that ballpark. Aymer too is buried in Westminster Abbey.
I enjoy meeting new people and learning their stories, especially when there is an underground thread to be explored and what lies on the surface is not the same as what is going on beneath. Joanna and William de Valence have long dwelt in the shadows and it’s going to be fascinating turning the spotlight on them. One of the serendipitous happenings that told me I was on the right track in writing about Joanna and William, was going to visit the Welsh Marches where Joanna had turned Goodrich Castle into a comfortable family residence. We stayed in a holiday cottage and the lady owner turned out to be a descendant of Joanna’s via one of her daughters. Some things are just meant to be!
Tomb effigy of William de Valence, half-brother of Henry III in Westminster Cathedral. He wears a jewelled circle round his coif, and his head rests on an exquisite Limoges-work pillow. He wrote to Joanna his wife, 20 years into their long marriage addressing her as his ‘Dearest friend and companion.’
THE THIRD NOVEL – ELEANOR OF CASTILE
Untitled at the moment (as is the de Valence one) but will follow the life of Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I. My interest in her stemmed from my initial reading about Joanna de Valence. Joanna’s husband was Edward I’s favourite uncle, and Joanna’s biographer suggested that Eleanor’s daughter Joan of Acre was named for her aunt and that they became close. Joanna and Eleanor had shared a great deal during the rule of Simon de Montfort, and while studying the background and reading several excellent works on Eleanor of Castile I decided she would make a fine follow-through but stand alone novel to the first one about Joanna. Titles are still to be decided, although we have a short list, currently in discussion.