Interview with Sophie Perinot, author of "The Sister Queens"

By Nancy Bilyeau

This Friday I will be in Florida, attending my first-ever Historical Novel Society conference. I've heard so much about the star-power lunches and dinners (this year the guests of honor will be C.W. Gortner, Steve Berry and Anne Perry!), the costume pageant, and the juicy author panels. 

Sophie Perinot

I'm honored to be on a panel with my friend Sophie Perinot, author of the wonderful novel The Sister Queens. Our panel has the awesome title "The Feisty Heroine Sold Into Marriage Who Hates Bear Baiting: Cliches in Historical Fiction and How to Avoid Them." We will try to lay down the law along with Susan Higginbotham and Gillian Bagwell. :)

To generate more excitement for the conference (and let me tell you, I am already very excited), I've updated an interview I conducted with Sophie that revealed her historical knowledge, creativity and savviness about being published:

Nancy Bilyeau: Your first novel, The Sister Queens—telling the story of Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence, sisters who both became medieval queens—came out in 2012, can you tell those readers who may not have read it yet a little bit about the book?

Sophie Perinot: The Sister Queens is a sister story first and foremost.  Yes, it is set in the 13th century and the atmosphere, politics and history are richly detailed and appropriate to that time but I wanted to focus my novel on that which is timeless—the way our sisters shape us whether by challenging us or by supporting us. 

I’d like to share the back-cover blurb if I may because I really think my publisher did a brilliant job of summing up the novel: 

“Raised together at the 13th Century court of their father, Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, Marguerite and Eleanor are separated by royal marriages—but never truly parted. 

“Patient, perfect, reticent, and used to being first, Marguerite becomes Queen of France. Her husband, Louis IX, is considered the greatest monarch of his age. But he is also a religious zealot who denies himself all pleasure—including the love and companionship his wife so desperately craves. Can Marguerite find enough of her sister’s boldness to grasp her chance for happiness in the guise of forbidden love? 

“Passionate, strong-willed, and stubborn, Eleanor becomes Queen of England. Her husband, Henry III, is neither as young nor as dashing as Marguerite’s. But she quickly discovers he is a very good man…and a very bad king. His failures are bitter disappointments for Eleanor, who has worked to best her elder sister since childhood. Can Eleanor stop competing with her sister and value what she has, or will she let it slip away?” 

NB: What was the most exhilarating moment for you as a debut author? The most humbling? 

SP: The most exhilarating moment was, without doubt, my launch day.  I was able to lunch with a small group of my fellow members of the Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the Historical Novel Society including the marvelous Kate Quinn and Stephanie Dray. Afterwards we walked to the nearest Barnes & Noble.  The minute I crossed the threshold I spotted The Sister Queens on the “New Releases” table.  Pure bliss.  Needless to say, many pictures were taken. 

The most humbling moment came about a week later.  I took my youngest child to a Barnes & Noble near our home so that he could see my book on the “New Releases” table.  He took one look, shrugged (really) and said something along the lines of, “that’s nice but the hardback books at the front are displayed standing up.”  Wow.  Yeah, that pretty much deflated my ego. 

NB: We will both soon be headed to the 2013 North American Historical Novel Society Conference.  Can you tell readers a little bit about the topics of the panels you will be sitting on in Florida? 

SP: I will be sitting on two panels.  The first entitled “Location, Location, Location” will look at historical settings, their importance as the foundation of good historical novels, and tricks and tools for building them credibly.  The Second is our panel on clichés. It will examine the good, bad and ugly of common clichés in the genre. I expect both panels to be scintillating, so if any of your blog readers are coming to St Pete’s, I hope they will consider adding these panels to their list of “must see” sessions.

NB: Is the St. Peterburg HNS Conference your first? 

SP: No indeed, I am a veteran of North American conferences, having been at every once since the 2005 inaugural event in Salt Lake City.  I honestly believe my early HNS conferences—before I had a completed manuscript—were extremely important in terms of career building/shaping.  They really made me think about the business end of writing historical fiction, and gave me the information I needed to make educated decisions about what I wanted in an agent and what sort of publication I was seeking.  I think it is very easy for new writers to write in a “creative bubble” focusing solely on developing their craft, but authors are actually small business people and the earlier a novice writer realizes that the better.  I’d recommend attending an HNS Conference to anyone serious about writing in the genre and to interested readers as well.

 NB: When you get home from Florida I am sure it is back to the writerly grindstone.  Can you tell us a little bit about what you are working on right now? 

SP: With pleasure.  I’ve moved forward a little over 300 years to 16^th century France where I am hard at work on a novel about Marguerite de Valois, the youngest daughter Henri II and Catherine de Medici. 

Marguerite grew up immersed in the political and dynastic struggles which consumed France during the Wars of Religion.  She was a witness to and participant in a lot of fascinating—and sometimes gruesome—history.  Yet she has seldom been explored in fiction, and when she has I am afraid portrayals of her—as a vain, corrupt wanton—reflect more of the ugly anti-Valois propaganda of her time than historical reality.  I hope to give readers a more balanced and nuanced view of Marguerite who was not only one of the most beautiful women of the French Court but also one of the most intelligent.  Readers can expect plenty of mother-daughter conflict between my heroine and her legendary mother, Catherine de Medici, as well as political and Romantic intrigue involving the likes of the Duc de Guise, Henri of Navarre, Charles IX of France and the future Henri III. 

Thanks for a wonderful interview, Sophie, and see you later this week!

For more information on The Sister Queens, go to: http://www.sophieperinot.com/home/

Interview with "Shadow on the Crown's" Patricia Bracewell

By Nancy Bilyeau

One of the frustrations of my new life as a novelist is not having enough time to read for pleasure. Those precious hours I've carved out for my book series must go to writing and reading for research. I used to buy novels on impulse at the bookstore, walk out of libraries with arms aching from the vertical load, and, most recently, download an intriguing title on my kindle. How I miss that kind of voracious reading.

During a break between my finishing The Chalice and starting my work on The Covenant, I vowed to return to my old life. I bought Shadow on the Crown, the debut novel of Patricia Bracewell. All I knew was that I liked the look of the cover, I'd heard some pleasant buzz about the book on Facebook, and the subject was an 11th century queen named Emma of Normandy. 

From the first page, I was hooked. Shadow on the Crown is a lovely read that kept me turning pages, eager to find out what would happen next. I learned a great deal about a period in English history I'm interested in--the early medieval age--while caring deeply about these characters. Emma, the daughter of a duke of Normandy, became the second wife of King Aethelred of England at the age of fifteen. The novel is about that turbulent marriage, which includes a brief kidnapping by Viking leaders and royal infidelities. Emma is the only queen known to have married successive--and rivalrous--kings of England. Her next marriage will be the subject of Bracewell's follow-up novel.

Happily, Patricia agreed to an interview on her fascinating novel. She grew up in California, where she taught literature and composition before embarking on her first novel. And, best of all, we will meet in person at the upcoming Historical Novel Society conference, where I will no doubt pepper her with even more questions!

Nancy Bilyeau: How did you “discover” Emma of Normandy?

Patricia Bracewell: It happened over a dozen years ago, and it was the first of a number of fortuitous events. I was noodling about on an on-line history bulletin board and I ran across Emma’s name mentioned in a series of posts. I found myself reading about a woman who had been wed to two kings of England and was the mother of two kings, and because I thought myself fairly knowledgeable about the names of English queens, I wondered why I had never heard of her. I started to dig and I grew more and more fascinated. Interestingly, I was never able to find that internet history board again. (Cue spooky music.)

NB: Although Emma of Normandy has had such an eventful life, she hasn’t been written about in historical fiction nearly as often as queens like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Elizabeth Woodville. Why do you think that is?

PB: I think there are two reasons. One is that Emma of Normandy is not exactly a household name. Graduate students in Anglo-Saxon or Medieval History will have run into her, but most people have never heard of her. You can’t write about someone you’ve never heard of. That’s only part of it, though. Look at Lady Macbeth – one of Emma’s contemporaries. Thanks to Shakespeare, we all know about her, yet few historical fiction writers have placed her at the center of a book. Maybe it’s because until recently, the early medieval period was considered a hard sell. Hopefully that is changing, but it does raise the question: have there been other novels written about that Scottish queen, or even about Emma, that no one was willing to publish? We’ll never know.

NB: How much contemporary documentation is there on Emma’s life? Were you able to unearth little-known facts on her and the other principals in the book?

PB: If one looks only to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which is where I began my research, there are only two mentions of Emma’s name in the period covered by my book. Even the manuscript that Emma herself commissioned late in her life, called the Encomium Emmae Regina by scholars, makes no mention of any events before about A.D. 1013. It doesn’t even mention King Æthelred. Historians have had to glean information about Emma from charters, from wills, from the records of gifts made to various churches and from later historians, like 12^th century William of Malmesbury who added some juicy rumors to what the Chronicle had to say. So there is very little contemporary evidence for what her life would have been like. I had to look at the general knowledge we have about that period, and apply it to an English queen.

NB: I watched the entire season of “The Vikings” on the History Channel and I’ve also seen “Thirteenth Warrior” and the 1958 Kirk Douglas/Tony Curtis film “The Vikings.” The Viking rulers in your book are not as crude and bloodthirsty as those in films and TV series. Do you think there is some stereotyping in the depiction of Vikings?

PB: Yes, and that stereotyping began very early on. What we know of the Vikings comes from what was written about them by the victims of their raids – who never had anything good to say about them – and from 13^th century Icelandic sagas which are stories meant to glorify deeds of heroism and, of course, violence. (The History Channel’s “The Vikings” is based on Ragnar’s Saga.) The Scandinavians had no written history until after the 11^th century, so there are no contemporary annals by the Vikings themselves to balance the perceived image. Historians of late have tried to emphasize the role of Vikings as traders and explorers, which was significant, as opposed to their reputation as bloodthirsty raiders. My own story is set toward the very end of the Viking Age, two hundred years after events depicted in any of the films you mentioned above, and a great deal happened to the Scandinavian countries in that time, including Christianization (something that did not happen overnight or all-at-once, mind you). Where is the truth? Well, not everyone born in Scandinavia between A.D. 800 and A.D.1100 boarded a ship and went out to savage his neighbors. That being said, the Viking Age was a brutal time, no matter where you lived.

NB: In your study of literature and your teaching career, did you ever imagine that a medieval queen would be the subject of your first book?

PB: I did, but the queen’s name was Guinevere. I was completely entranced by the Arthurian Legend for many years, and I always thought that I would someday write about the Matter of Britain. I’m only off by about 600 years!

NB: Did English queens ever have a harder life than during this time period? I’m thinking of not only Emma but her husband’s first queen.

PB: I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘hard life’. As a queen and peaceweaver, like so many other medieval queens, Emma was a foreigner, thrust into a court where she had no family or noble allies close at hand to support her. So yes, it would have been hard for her to make her way in that world. She would have had to forge those ties from scratch. As for what happened behind closed doors, between husband and wife when there was nothing to bind them but the demands of religion and state, historians do not say. It’s up to the historical novelist to peek behind the bed curtains. Did queens in later eras have it any better? Ask Ann Boleyn.

NB: For you, what is the line between fiction and fact? Are there fictional characters in Shadow on the Crown?

PB: There are fictional characters in the novel, but all of them are in supporting roles. I created them where necessary to flesh out the story. As for the line between fiction and fact, I set out to write a story, not history. Every step of the way I asked myself if what I was imagining was plausible, given the available facts. Often I had to depend upon conjecture. Historians do this, as well, but they make certain that any conjectures they make are specifically identified as such. The novelist doesn’t have that restriction. The Author’s Note, though, is the place where the writer can discuss any deviations from known facts, and I think they are almost as much fun to read – and write – as the stories themselves.

NB: Your book has a passionate romance in it but it also depicts rape within marriage. How hard was that to grapple with as an author?

PB: Any scene that is intensely emotional – whether it is passionate, violent, or sad – is difficult to write. I struggle with all of them. Technically they are difficult because you want to portray physical events that are occurring, and at the same time you want your reader to experience not just the physical but the emotional turmoil that your viewpoint character is experiencing. To do that, the writer has to place herself right there, in that moment – be that character – not just once, but as many times as it takes to get the balance between the physical and the emotional absolutely right. It is, quite simply, hard work and emotionally draining.

NB: Where do you feel historical fiction is headed as a genre?

PB: I think that depends on us, the writers. The more that we demand excellence from ourselves and from each other, the better our books will be and the more recognition we will receive from the literary community. The very fact that there is now a Walter Scott Prize honoring the best historical fiction published in the U.K. is an enormous step forward. I’d like to see a similar prize awarded in the U.S.  

NB: Did you see these books as a trilogy from the beginning? How hard was it to stop where you did?

PB: I always conceived Emma’s story as a trilogy, and I always knew where the first book would end, so stopping wasn’t difficult. I simply turned around three times and began working on the second book. Now that I’ve finished what I hope is a decent draft of that second book, I have to admit that the writing of the final scene this time around was very difficult, and the book ended at a place not originally of my choosing. I’m learning that a novel sometimes has a mind of its own. (Cue spooky music again.)

Thank you for a wonderful interview!

To learn more about Patricia and her work, go to: 

http://www.patriciabracewell.com

Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller The Chalice is now on sale.

On sale $2.99, Kindle and Nook