Nadolig Llawen - Merry Christmas!

It's an unusual December for me this year, as I'm taking a little break from writing until January. My latest novel - The Warrior's Forbidden Maiden (sneak preview of the cover at the end of this post!) - was accepted by my editor at Harlequin Mills and Boon at the beginning of November, and since then I've been sitting back and mulling over the next project.  It's been a few years since I took such a long break from writing, and for someone who writes every day, it's been very strange. However, it has had exciting results.

Before I started writing, I was always a voracious reader of historical fiction, and particularly the medieval period. Among my favourite books are those by Rosemary Hawley Jarman, set against the  Wars of the Roses - We Speak No Treason, The King's Grey Mare and The Courts of Illusion, the latter, to my mind, her best work.  I've had a desire to write about the Wars of the Roses for a while now, and after re-reading these wonderful books recently, I've decided to make it so!

Therefore, 2024 will see a departure from my Welsh-set stories and I'll be moving over the border and into the English side of the March, namely Ludlow and a little further eastwards into Tewkesbury. These towns were pivotal in the Wars of the Roses and are steeped in history still.  I've visited Ludlow several times but had never been to Tewkesbury, so I made a point of staying with a friend for a few days in the lovely Hop Pole Hotel, combining this visit with some research for my next book. 

 

Tewkesbury is a beautiful town that exceeded all my expectations. Medieval streets, timbered buildings, though very modern bridges span the river Avon, and of course at this time of year sparkling Christmas lights! The abbey dates from 1087 and it stood as a witness to the bloody battle of 1471 when the vanquished Lancastrians who'd sought sanctuary within its holy walls were dragged out by the victorious Yorkists and savagely put to the sword. The seventeen year old Edward, only son of Henry VI and the heir to the throne, was killed fleeing the battle.

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My book, which may be the first of two linked stories, is only an idea as yet but will be a marriage of alliance between a Lancastrian on one side and a Yorkist on the other.  The wars, which lasted for over three decades, saw sporadic outbreaks of conflict as opposed to a period of continuous fighting. There were times of uneasy concord, enforced peace treaties and precarious stalemates as fortunes swung back and forth. And, of course, there were political marriages, the most infamous and, ultimately, tragic of which was that between the Yorkist King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Sir John Grey, a Lancastrian knight who was killed at the battle of St Albans at the age of 29.  

According to Rosemary Hawley Jarman in The King's Grey Mare,  John and Elizabeth's marriage was a love match, a theme that works well for the story, but it is likely there was a strategic element involved, as there certainly was in her marriage to Edward of York.  However, while most high status medieval marriages were political - engineered by men and leaving women with little choice in the matter - human beings were much the same then as they are now, and feelings like affection, hope, desire, joy, fear and grief must have entered into all those forced unions, alongside resentment, tolerance, ambition and intrigue. 

 

 

So I've got plenty of inspiration for this next book, and on my bookshelves as of yesterday are half a dozen academic tomes on The Wars of the Roses, borrowed from my local university library, where I'm lucky enough to work. I won't start reading them just yet though, but will enjoy a final Christmas of mixed feelings in my flat - because I'll be on the move in 2024, to a new house, but hopefully not too far away!

Watch this space for more news of my June release, The Warrior's Forbidden Maiden, and to find out how my Yorkist-Lancastrian story is shaping - or not (you know what they say about best laid plans!) In the meantime, wishing you all a very wonderful festive season and all good things in 2024!

Lissa Xx  

 

UK cover of my June 2024 release available to preorder from Amazon