What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember, and to write a novel—particularly an historical novel—has been a long-held ambition. At school, one of my favourite lessons was English Language, especially composition, and I also spent many a happy hour writing stories for pleasure at home. Medieval history has also been a great passion of mine since childhood, and I’m driven by the idea of bringing that period to life in my writing.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
As the novel is based on real events, I wanted it to remain as true to the facts as possible. Research, therefore, was a fundamental part of the writing process and that can prove long and arduous – but in the end extremely rewarding, as it helps to recreate the period in an authentic way. Of course, as a novelist, I need to put flesh on the bones – to humanise the people of the past – but I feel it’s terribly important for truth to underpin the story and I was determined not to stray too far from the known facts. The hardest scene to write, I must admit, was that which describes the battle of Barnet, I found this extremely difficult, but if, like me, you write a book set during the Wars of the Roses, battle scenes are unavoidable!
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
The novel is the first of a proposed trilogy charting the life of Richard III, who has been my historical hero for over fifty years. He is also the protagonist in ‘The Traitor’s Son’, which is the first in a proposed trilogy covering his life and times. The novel begins with the death of his father, the Duke of York, and spans the following ten formative years of Richard’s life—telling how a grieving, fatherless eight-year-old grows to become a courageous warrior of eighteen. Richard’s own death on the battlefield of Bosworth at the young age of thirty-two cut short a reign which promised to be one of the most enlightened in English history. His concern for justice and for the welfare of the ordinary person was uncommon for the time, and his only parliament introduced laws which protected the most vulnerable in society. Richard’s story—his real story, not the Shakesperean myth—is a truly tragic one, and one which needs to be told.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
I’m not really a movie buff, so this is a difficult question. However, if I could select actors from both past and present, I think I would cast a young Daniel Radcliffe as the teenage Richard, a young Russell Crowe as the charismatic Edward IV, David Oakes, who played the perfect George duke of Clarence in The White Queen, and the late Welsh actor Stanley Baker as Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. These artists really accord with my mental picture of each of the characters. As for the female roles, I think a young Tara Fitzgerald would be a good fit for Richard’s pragmatic sister, Margaret, and perhaps Dame Judi Dench for the matriarch, Cecily Neville, duchess of York.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
I hope readers enjoy the book and feel that they’ve learned a little about the characters and the times they lived in. Hopefully readers will come to understand them as people – their needs, their motives, their loves, their hates, what drove them - and not just as names from history. My greatest hope is that they will see Richard as the noble man he was, and feel they have experienced the events of his life in real time, in the way he experienced them himself.
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