Helen Hollick - Novelist

It was a pleasure to attend the London Chapter Meeting of the Romantic Novelist’s Association on the 21st May, 2011, at which our guest speaker was Helen Hollick, whose novels I enjoy.
For thirteen years Helen worked as a library assistant at Chingford library. During those years her interest in and passion for King Arthur and the Dark Ages grew. As a result she wrote the first of her trilogy, Pendragon’s Banner, which Heinemann accepted three days before her 40th birthday in 1994.
As Helen explained at the Chapter Meeting, she intended to write Guinevere’s story but realised it should be Arthur’s story - the tale of what might have happened, an interpretation of what we think we know.
Helen moved onto the Saxons. She brightened up Harold Godwinson’s story and while doing so visited Waltham Abbey where he walked. She also visited Battle Abbey, the site of the Battle of Hastings. While there she sensed that if she turned round she would see the battle, but she could not force herself to look. I wish she had taken a peep, I would love to know what she would have seen.
While writing Harold the King her hatred of William grew. She wrote the novel from the Saxon viewpoint and presented Harold as a popular, dynamic leader who gave his life to save England from invasion.
After the publication of Harold the King, Helen’s agent suggested she should write about pirates. Doubtless, the agent had the popularity of The Pirates of the Caribbean mind.
One day, Helen went for a walk along the beach and the whole story of The Sea Witch came to her.
Helen settled on a rock and looked out to sea and saw her pirate. (*This incident reminds me of Baroness Orczy who, while waiting for the train that Emmuska saw her most famous hero, Sir Percival Blakeney, dressed in exquisite clothes. She noted the monocle held up in his slender hand, heard both his lazy drawl and his quaint laugh. Emmuska told her husband about the incident and within five weeks wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel.)
Unfortunately, Helen’s agent didn’t like Sea Witch but Helen was not deterred. She wrote three more pirate novels and recently completed the fourth, which will be published in the autumn. Her determination has paid off, all of Helen’s novels are being republished by Sourcebooks in the U.S.A and Silverwood in the U.K.
The rejection was a serious mistake. Helen’s many fans relish her imaginative, well-written tales.
I have been one of Helen’s fans for a long time. Her novels have never disappointed me; and her talk did not disappoint me; it inspired me to write to the best of my ability and not to become discouraged.
Thank you,
Helen.
Series. Pendragons Banner
The Kingmaking
Pendragons Banner
The Shadow of the King
Seawitch Chronicles
Seawitch, Pirate Code, Bring It Close, Ripples in the Sand. Autumn 2011
Novels.
Harold the King. aka. I am the Chosen King
A Hollow Crown aka. The Forever Queen
Children’s Fiction
Come and Tell Me Be Safe Be Sensible.
*My article in the first edition of Vintage Script a subscription magazine devoted to Past Times

Tangled Love by Rosemary Morris - Authors notes and Prologue

I am proud to announce that my historical novel Tangled Love set in England in Queen Anne's reign - 1702-1714 - will be published by MuseItUp Publishing on the 27th June, 2012

Author’s Notes

When the outwardly Protestant Charles II died in 1685, he left a country torn by religious controversy but no legitimate children. The throne passed to his Catholic brother James.
It was an anxious time for the people, whose fears increased when James II, became so unpopular that he was forced into exile. In 1688, James’s Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, became the new king and queen of England.
Some English Protestants, who had sworn allegiance to James II, refused to take a new oath of allegiance to William and Mary and joined him in France.
When James’s younger daughter, Anne, inherited the throne in 1702, many Protestant exiles returned to England. Others declared themselves Jacobites and supporters of James II son, James III, by his second wife, Mary of Modena, and stayed abroad. They believed James III should be king.


Prologue
1693

Richelda Shaw stood silent in her nursery while thunder pealed outside the ancient manor house and an even fiercer storm raged deep within. She pressed her hands to her ears and, eyes closed, remained as motionless as the marble statues in the orangery.
‘Nine years old and you’ve not yet learned to be neat!’ Elsie, her mother’s personal maid, pulled Richelda’s hands from her ears. ‘Come, your father’s waiting for you.’
Richelda’s hands trembled. What was wrong? Until now Father’s short visits from France meant gifts and laughter. This one made Mother cry while the servants spoke in hushed tones.
Followed by Elsie, Richelda hurried down the broad oak stairs. For a moment, she paused to admire the lilies of the valley in a Delft bowl. Only yesterday, she picked the flowers to welcome Father home. After she had arranged them with tender care, she placed them on a chest, which stood beneath a pair of crossed broadswords on the wall above.
Elsie opened the massive door of the great hall where Father stood to one side of the enormous hearth. Richelda’s eyes searched for her mother before she spread her skirts wide and knelt before him.
Father strode forward and placed his right hand on her bent head. ‘Bless you, daughter, may God keep you safe.’ He smiled. ‘Upon my word, sweetheart, I vow the colour of your hair reminds me of a golden rose. How glad I am to see roses bloom in these troubled times.’
Richelda chewed her lower lip again. She did not know him well and dared not speak. Therefore, when he sat and beckoned to her, she hesitated.
Putting an arm round her waist, he drew her to him. ‘Come, do not be nervous of your father, child. Now, my daughter, do you know King James II now holds court in France and that his daughter, Mary, and William, his son-in-law, seized his throne?’
‘Yes, Mother told me we are well rid of King James and his Papist wife,’ she piped up, proud of her knowledge.
With a sigh, Father lifted her onto his knees and held her close. ‘Richelda, I must follow His Majesty for I swore an oath of allegiance to him. Tell me, Richelda, while the king lives how can I with honor swear allegiance to his disloyal daughter and her husband?’
Unable to think of a reply, she lowered her head.
Father held her closer. ‘Your mother pleads with me to declare myself for William and Mary and begs me not to return to France, but I am obliged to serve King James. Do you understand, Richelda?’
She nodded. Her cheek brushed against the softness of his velvet coat and she breathed in his spicy perfume.
‘If you remain in England, you will be safe. Bellemont is part of your mother’s dowry and I doubt the Crown will confiscate her estate.’
If she remained in England! Startled, she stared at him.
Smiling, he popped her onto her feet and stood. ‘Come, we shall ride. I have something to show you.’
Before long, they rode away from the house and estate. They drew rein on the brow of a hill. At its foot lay Field House, their ancestral home seized by the Roundheads soon after poor King Charles I execution.
He pointed at the Elizabethan manor house. ‘Richelda, I promised my father to do all in my power to regain the property.’ Grey-faced, he pressed his hand to his chest. ‘Alas, so far I failed to keep my oath and now I cannot,’ he wheezed.
Richelda yearned to help him keep his promise to her grandfather. She also yearned to find the gold and jewels legend said her buccaneer ancestor, Sir Nicholas, hid.
After her father breathed easy, she ventured. ‘If we found the treasure trove you could buy Field House.’
‘Ah,’ he teased, ‘You believe Sir Nicholas did not give all his plunder to Good Queen Bess.’
‘Elsie told me legend says he hid some of his booty in Field House,’ Richelda said, excited by the thought of pearls and rubies, diamonds and emeralds, gold and silver bars and coins. Less shy of him, she asked. ‘In his old age, when Sir Nicholas retired from seafaring, did he put his ship’s …’ she broke off for a moment in an attempt to remember the word and continued triumphantly, ‘…his ship’s figurehead, Lady Luck, in the great hall?’
‘Yes, for all I know she is still above a mighty fireplace carved with pomegranates, our family’s device.’
‘I want to find the treasure.’
He chuckled and wheeled his thoroughbred mare round. ‘Come, time to ride back to Bellemont.’
‘Do you know our family motto, Richelda?’
‘Fortune favours the brave.’
‘Are you brave, my little lady? Will you swear on the Bible to do all in your power to regain Field House?’
To please him, she nodded.


All the best,
Rosemary
www.rosemarymorris.com. www.rosemarymorris.blogspot.com
Tangled Hearts available from www.enspirenpress.com, amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, barnes and noble and soon in bookshops.
Tangled Hearts is set in the reign of the last Stuart monarch,Queen Anne (1702-1714)and has received five star reviews.