The Story Behind ‘A Land Beyond Ravens’ by Kathleen Cunningham Guler

The premise behind A Land Beyond Ravens, the final book in the Macsen’s Treasure Series, began with the question: how did the quest for the Holy Grail get started? A very big question with no definitive answer.

Each of the four books in the series involves part of a fictional set of five sacred symbols belonging to Britain’s ancient high kings—collectively called Macsen’s Treasure. They are loosely based on the mythical “Thirteen Treasures of Britain,” and include a torque, spear, sword, grail and crown. Except for the crown, all the other pieces were separated and hidden for safekeeping during the turbulent years following the withdrawal of Roman leadership in the early fifth century.

The bare sketch for A Land Beyond Ravens required it include something about Macsen’s grail, a sense of the growing influence of the Christian church in Britain, and that Arthur would finally become high king. A few other notes floated around involving the main characters of master spy Marcus ap Iorwerth and his wife Claerwen, as well as Myrddin (Merlin). That, and the framework that history and legend provided as a backdrop, was all I had when I started writing.

Where to go from there?

First popularized in the late Middle Ages (but long after Arthur’s alleged historical period), the quest for the Holy Grail became known as a catalyst that split apart Arthur’s court and ended his reign. From where the grail stories originated is unknown, but they became inseparable from the Arthurian cycle. The Christian overtones may stem from the church’s alleged “adoption” of many pagan symbols, festivals and holidays in its early days. Using activities with which people were familiar drew them to the church. Gradually, formerly pagan holidays and symbols were Christianized and the older influences were either forgotten or outright forbidden.

What if—likewise—a grail existed that was older than Christianity and was at one time held to be sacred by a people seen as pagan? My personal theory is that this grail could also have been “adopted.” We have the church’s story of Joseph of Arimathea, a kinsman of Jesus, coming to Britain with a cup that was allegedly used either at the Last Supper or to catch the blood of Christ at the crucifixion. If the grail of the high kings was lost, conveniently, who could refute the church’s claim on it?

Based on these thoughts, I wondered: what if the seeds for the quest for the Holy Grail were planted long before it actually gained momentum? What if it was started on purpose? What if it was started by accident? All impossible to prove, but still plausible. And so began the story of A Land Beyond Ravens.

CYNTHIA AND CONSTANTINE by Kathye Quick

Believe it or not, the concept for Cynthia and Constantine sprung up during a season of American Idol. I work for county government and once a month 7 of us get together to have lunch. We call it the Lusty Ladies Lunch Group. We keep in touch via email.

During this particular season, Bo Bice and Constantine Maroulis were competing. Two of the Lusties choose these guys as their favorites. While we didn’t agree on who should win that season, we did all agree that they had ‘romance book cover’ hair; the kind of hair Knights in Shinning Armor had in days of yore.

Well one thing lead to another and we began to serialize a story about them. We named our hero Constantine and his lady was Cynthia, one of the Lusties. We gave Sir Constantine a brother, Sir Braeden and his lady is named Jane, another Lustie.

The story just evolved on a weekly basis with email scenes going back and forth until I had 100 pages.

We thought that was the end of the adventure until I decided to flesh out Constantine and Cynthia’s story and turn it into a 55,000-word book. I was fortunate enough to have the Wild Rose Press express interest in the novel and then publish it.

And yes, you’ll either love this or hate this, but the antagonist of the story is named after one of the American Idol Judges. I’m sure you can guess which.

There will be a sequel to this book called Jane and Braeden because in the course of fleshing out the story so it would be long enough for a book, Jane’s character became an integral part of the book and now we need to hear her story also.

Kathye Quick has been writing since the sisters in Catholic School gave her a #2 pencil and some paper with ruled lines.

From stories about her family for Writing Week in fifth grade, to becoming editor-in-Chief of her high school newspaper, The Blueprint, to 1999 when she realized her dream of being published, Kathye’s love of the written word span numerous genres.

She writes contemporary and career romances for Avalon Books, romantic comedy and historicals for Wings Press, urban fantasy for Cerridwen Press, and most recently medieval historical romances for Wild Rose Press.

Kathye is one of the founders of Liberty States Fiction Writers, a group launched in January 2009 to help writers of all fiction genres in their journey to publication. She had been a member of New Jersey Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America since 1988 and considered it an honor to have been NJRW President in 1992 and 2001.

Kathye’s fifth hardcover romance for Avalon books, ‘Tis the Season, a holiday romance complete with Santa Claus, a sleigh ride and a New England snowfall earned a 2006 HOLT Medallion nomination.

Her debut historical romance, Daughters of the Moon, from Wings e-Press has been heralded as a flawless glimpse into the world of the ancient Greeks.

Writing as P. K. Eden with writing partner, Patt Mihailoff, Firebrand, an urban fantasy based on the fall of the Garden of Eden, has won two Reviews Choice Awards and many five-star ratings.

In August 2009, Avalon Books will publish her three-book contemporary romance series entitled Grandmother’s Rings. The books, Amethyst (August 2009), Sapphire (December 2009) and Citrine (early 2010) follow the Archer family siblings in their quest to find their soul mates using rings given to them by their Grandmother. Kathye used the birthstones from her family for her inspiration for this series.

While writing romances has been her dream for many years, the book of Kathye’s heart, is a non-fiction work entitled, Hi Mom, How Are Things in Heaven, a book that developed after the death of her mother and deals with coping with grief though humor. She is currently still working on the concept for this book.

In her “other” life, Kathye works for Somerset County government. She is married with three sons. You can visit Kathye’s website at www.kathyequick.com.

AXE OF IRON: THE SETTLERS by J.A. Hunsinger

In 986 about five hundred medieval Norse people settled the island of Greenland. Over the five hundred year history of the two known settlements on the islands southwestern coast the population increased to as many as four thousand people. We know little about the people or the settlements because the people wrote nothing down for posterity. All we know about them comes to us from the Greenland Saga and the Saga of Eirik the Red, both written about two centuries after the facts they pretend to convey. In about the mid-fifteenth century the people abandoned their last remaining settlement, Eiriksfjord. Wherever they went, they took their ships, tools, and every useful item they possessed. Nobody knows their destination for they left not a clue. Their disappearance is the premise for my Axe of Iron series.

Everything that we know about these people, pertaining to their culture and disappearance, I have covered in detail in the Historical Perspective of my character-driven, historical fiction novel Axe of Iron: The Settlers. This is the first book of the continuing Axe of Iron series about the Greenland Norse people and what a lifetime of research has led me to believe happened to them.

My interest in the subject stems from the Norse and Germanic mythology I studied in school, my Swedish/German heritage, and the vexing question of the disappearance of four thousand people. I recognized early on that there are many people who are fascinated by the medieval Viking culture. Although the people I write about share that Viking heritage, when they sailed to Greenland and North America in the tenth and eleventh centuries they were no longer Vikings in the strict sense of the word and I do not refer to them as such.

The unknown aspects of their disappearance gives me the opportunity to use fiction to tell a tale about them that answers many of the questions about certain North American Indian tribes who exhibited characteristics, customs, and mannerisms that early explorers—eighteenth century—attributed to pre-historical European contact. The dates when these facts came to light reinforce my contention that the European contact alluded to could only have been the Greenland Norse people. My series will deal, in a fictional sense, with why tribal members of some pre-historical Indian tribes looked like white people, had customs like white people—including religious beliefs—were completely different from other tribes encountered, and welcomed the earliest white explorers with open arms.

The Greenland Norse did not disappear; they assimilated with the pre-historical North American Indians that they encountered. I believe this assimilation process was well underway by the early years of the eleventh century in the Canadian Arctic and moved south as the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the onslaught of the Mini-Ice Age. This natural climate cycle caused native peoples— including the last holdouts of Greenland Norse people remaining in Eiriksfjord—to migrate with the animals on which they subsisted.

Conventional brick and mortar archaeologists have largely ignored this controversial aspect of our pre-historical past. The path to discovery remains blurred by the passage of one thousand years of time. There are no ruins or pyramids to create entire cultures around, and few artifacts to discover. The presence of the Greenland Norse people on this continent is but an echo from the dim past, but it is here nonetheless.

Scientists have found Norse DNA in Greenland and Baffin Island Inuit people. If somebody will look, perhaps Norse DNA will be found in members of contemporary Indian tribes in northeastern and north central North America. Only then will we know their fate.

As I wrote in the Historical Perspective of Axe of Iron: The Settlers,
more than 40–generations have elapsed since they came to this continent. Now their very existence, everything they accomplished, has faded from the collective memory of all the peoples they contacted.
I prefer to believe the four thousand live on however, their genetic makeup diluted by the intervening centuries of time. They are still here smiling back at us from the faces of the Inuit Greenlanders, Cree, Ojibwa, and Iroquois with whom they joined so long ago.

That is why I have a story to tell, a story as seen through the eyes of my characters.

J. A. Hunsinger lives in Colorado, USA, with his wife Phyllis. The first novel of his character-driven, historical fiction series, Axe of Iron: The Settlers, represents his first serious effort to craft the story of a lifelong interest in the Viking Age—especially as it pertains to Norse exploration west of Iceland—and extensive research and archaeological site visitations as an amateur historian. He has tied the discovery of many of the Norse artifacts found on this continent to places and events portrayed in his novels.

Much of his adult life has been associated with commercial aviation, both in and out of the cockpit. As an Engineering Technical Writer for Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems Group, Phoenix, AZ, he authored two comprehensive pilots’ manuals on aircraft computer guidance systems and several supplemental aircraft radar manuals. His manuals were published and distributed worldwide to airline operators by Honeywell Engineering, Phoenix, AZ. He also published an article, Flight Into Danger, in Flying Magazine, (August 2002).

Historical Novel Society, American Institute of Archaeology, Canadian Archaeology Association, and IBPA-Independent Book Publishers Association, are among the fraternal and trade organizations in which he holds membership.

You can visit his website at http://www.vinlandpublishing.com and his blog at http://www.vinlandpublishing.blogspot.com.

Editor’s Note: J.A. will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in March  and April ‘09. If you would like to host him on your blog during his tour, contact his online book publicist, Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com.

COLD ROCK RIVER by J.L. Miles: “…everything that Tempe experiences was lifted from the lives of actual people who wore the chains and bore the scars of slavery.”

Cold Rock River was inspired by an incident in my own life. Like Adie’s sister Annie, my baby sister Vick choked on a jellybean when she was twenty months old. It was the week following Easter and we three older girls had our little baskets squirreled away. Our mother insisted we weren’t to drag them around the house, but she was gone for the evening and our daddy let us roam about, baskets in hand, to our hearts’ content. I don’t recall that any of us actually gave Vicki a jelly bean. More likely she picked on up off the floor. I do remember I panicked when I saw her put one in her mouth, and I tried to grab her. She started giggling and running as fast as her little legs would allow. The next thing I knew, she was choking and her face was blue. She survived, but as I grew older I was very much aware of how our lives would have changed had she not. One evening, lying in bed, something made me think of it; how fifty years had passed and yet the memory of that night was still as raw as fresh-skinned knees. I closed my eyes, ready to drift off, when I “heard” the opening lone of what became Cold Rock River. I got up to write it down, so I wouldn’t forget a single word. I was still at it the next morning. I had forty, maybe fifty pages. I realized then that this young, beautiful, delightful creature, who I chose to call Adie, might have something to tell me worth hearing. And if I was quiet and listened closely, maybe her ghosts would help me purge mine.

Cold Rock River was also a five year journey without a paycheck! Initially, it was to be the story of Adie Jenkins, seventeen and pregnant and unmarried during the early 1960’s. I know today if you’re in her condition, they throw you a shower. In those days they threw you out. I decided Adie would do some chicken farming to feed them when it became apparent Buck wasn’t going to be one she could count on. I went to the library to research Georgia chicken farming and stumbled onto the Slave Narratives. The complete collection— which contains more than two thousand first-person accounts—is housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. They were commissioned by President Roosevelt during the depression years, in order to record the journey of those freed slaves still alive. Writers were sent across the nation to search for them. Their accounts are as fascinating as they are poignant. Over the years, there’s been a good deal of controversy as to their accuracy, based on the fact that some of the freed slaves were fearful or perhaps suspicious of the government—brings to mind “forty acres and a mule”—and hesitant to speak candidly regarding the treatment they may or may not have received at the hands of their sometimes still powerful former masters. The collective consensus is that somewhere amidst the vast amount of material lies the truth. After months of reading, reviewing, and re-examining all of the narratives I could locate, Tempe’s portion of Cold Rock River emerged. Her story, based on what I found, is remarkable. Everything that Tempe experiences was lifted from the lives of actual people who wore the chains and bore the scars of slavery. I won’t ever forget her; nor am I able to forget those I ‘met” through the narratives, who bravely shared their life stories so that Tempe could tell me hers.

Cold Rock River is the parallel journey of two women born a century apart. In 1963 rural Georgia, with the Vietnam War cranking up, seventeen-year-old and pregnant Adie Jenkins discovers the diary of pregnant, seventeen-year-old Tempe Jordan, a slave girl ~ circa 1863 ~ with the Civil War winding down. Adie is haunted by the death of her baby sister Annie. Tempe is grieving the sale of her three children sired by her white master. What’s buried in the diary could destroy them both.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy! It’s available now in Trade Paperback on amazon.com and at fine booksellers everywhere.

J.L. Miles is the author of the historical fiction COLD ROCK RIVER.  You can visit her website at www.jlmiles.com.  If you would like to pick up a copy of COLD ROCK RIVER at Amazon, the net’s largest online bookstore, click on the book cover above.

THE LOST DIARY OF DON JUAN by Douglas Carlton Abrams: “…what could we learn from him about the nature of passion?”

One night I went to bed asking myself a question that I believe every married man or woman asks eventually: how could I stay happily and passionately married for the rest of my life?

The next morning I awoke as if I had been shaken. It was then that I first thought of Don Juan, the universal symbol of passion. I wondered what if he had kept a diary. What secrets would it contain? What could we learn from him about the nature of passion? And ultimately, what might cause the world’s greatest seducer to forsake all women for one woman? I left my wife’s warm sleeping body, walked past our three sleeping children, and sat down at the dining room table. It was as if a voice was whispering the story in my ear.

This is how I decided to write an historical diary exploring Don Juan’s life, his passionate relationships, and his eventual fall into the madness of love. I spent over four years reconstructing the world of 16^th century Sevilla, including several trips to Seville itself. The book, which began as an inquiry into the nature of love and lust, took on a life of its own and led me on thrilling adventure into the rich and dangerous world of Golden Age Spain.

So what, you may ask, is the secret to lasting passion and devotion? In the novel, Don Juan finds his answer. I hope that within its pages you will find yours.

Douglas Carlton Abrams is the author of the historical romance novel, The Lost Diary of Don Juan.  You can visit his website at www.lostdiaryofdonjuan.com.

WEST ACROSS THE BOARD by Andrew Jalbert: “As far back as I can remember I wanted to write and be near the ocean.”

I’ve always been a bit smitten by the tropics. As far back as I can remember I wanted to write and be near the ocean. I should expand on that a bit: I wanted to be near, in, or beneath the ocean’s surface. By the time I was in my early thirties, I had a decade of working on dive boats, jumping around the Caribbean and writing for scuba and travel magazines under my belt. Those years were priceless, not only in terms of the environments and cultures I was lucky enough to experience, but for the opportunity to write about them. My writing teeth were cut on sailboats, beaches, and port town taverns and for that I consider myself fortunate.

It goes without saying that when I decided to cross over into publishing fiction, the stories would take place someplace tropical. West Across the Board is set in one of my favorite locations: The Florida Keys. I fell in love with the island chain years ago, not only for its stunning scenery, collage of cultures, and pristine waters, but for its fascinating history. Closer to Cuba than the U.S. mainland, Key West was more accessible by boat than car until the mid 1930s. It was during the 1930s that I chose to set my novel. This gave me a great opportunity to research an era in the southern keys that I’ve always been interested in and an excuse to spend more time on Key West.

West Across the Board begins in 1999 with 86 year old Lázaro driving from Boston to the Florida Keys to see his dying friend Dominic before time runs out. As he drives, he remembers not only his younger years in Key West, but his reasons for fleeing his island home and his friend over half a century before. Lázaro, a gifted Cuban mariner and fisherman in his youth first met Dominic at Sloppy Joe’s Saloon in 1934. The two young men bond instantly over a game of chess played in the smoky tavern. The games continue and after every one, each man’s win is scratched into the back of the board. As the game tally grows, so does their friendship. The games are a constant during an era that saw devastating hurricanes, shipwrecks, and even war.

Prior to his journey back to the keys, Lázaro retrieves the old chessboard and makes a startling discovery. The number of scratches, first marked in the saloon over sixty years before and uncounted until now, has the two men evenly tied. As he drives towards the keys, Lázaro is forced to confront a past he has struggled to forget while anticipating the reunion with his old friend and what could be their final game.

Much like the tropics, the game of chess is endearing to me. Not because I’m any good at it, but because (much like my characters) I still play chess with my childhood friend–a tradition that has continued for nearly 30 years. Across the board from each other, we have enjoyed and talked about happy times and supported each other while weathering loss.

West Across the Board is a story about friendship, hope, loss and reconciliation set against a colorful, historically accurate backdrop. Perhaps the most consistent comment I receive from readers is that after finishing the novel, they wanted to visit Key West. I hope of each of them does.

Andrew Jalbert is the author of WEST ACROSS THE BOARD. You can visit his website at www.jalbertproductions.com.

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MISTRESS OF THE REVOLUTION by Catherine Delors

The story behind Mistress of the Revolution began with a conversation with my father, a retired history professor, a few months before his death. We were talking about Vic, the little mountain town in southern France where, like my heroine Gabrielle, I spent part of my childhood. He asked me if I remembered Coffinhal Street there.

Of course, I had known of Coffinhal Street all of my life. Only I never thought of the character after whom it was named. But then my father told me that Coffinhal had been an ardent revolutionary, a Jacobin, a friend of Robespierre. He had even finished his career as Vice President of the Revolutionary Tribunal. I was intrigued and looked up the man. And I found someone almost everybody hated! There was something fascinating about that.

It just happened that two other historical characters of the Revolution were from the same region. One of them, the Chevalier des Huttes, an officer in the elite corps of the Queen’s Bodyguards, had a mansion in Vic. It still stands there, close to the Coffinhal house.

In the novel, the Chevalier is in love with Marie-Antoinette, which is consistent with local lore. As my father pointed out, though, he would have shown the same devotion to his Queen out of a sense of duty, regardless of any personal feelings he might have had for her.

Another historical character, Carrier, a revolutionary and a man of extraordinary cruelty, was from a village only a few miles away from Vic. Of course Carrier too had to appear in the novel.

It was an irresistible conjunction: three men who had played an important role in the French Revolution were tied to my little mountain town of Vic. I must confess that, before writing the book, I had little interest in that historical period.

That changed in short order. I realized during my research that most of the political issues raised at the time remain current. People then began to discuss civil rights, in particular women’s rights and the equality of all before the law.

Soon I was engrossed by my subject, and my characters acquired a tremendous hold on me. I felt that they had come to life, that they were people I really knew. Some people say that writing is a “hobby.” For me, and, I suspect, for many other authors, writing goes much deeper than that.

The whole beginning of Mistress of the Revolution is set in the mountains of Auvergne, where I had not been able to visit in twelve years. I had to draw on my childhood memories to recreate the feel of the region. In fact I did not return to Auvergne until after the novel was completed. What a joy it was then to rediscover the place at last, as beautiful as I remembered it. My love for it has even deepened, because now it is the setting of my novel as well.

Catherine Delors is the author of the historical fiction novel, Mistress of the Revolution. Leave a comment below and you could win a copy of her book! All winners will be announced at www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.blogspot.com  on March 31!

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LADY OF THE ROSES by Sandra Worth

After my debut novel THE ROSE OF YORK: LOVE & WAR was published, I heard back from readers who wanted to know if I was planning to write a book on a secondary character in the book, John Neville, Lord Montagu (the Kingmaker’s brother). It seems he touched a lot of hearts. I wasn’t planning one at the time, but the seed my readers planted in my head germinated over the years, and eventually turned into LADY OF THE ROSES.

Based on history, this is the story of young Isobel Ingoldesthorpe and Sir John Neville, medieval ancestors of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, who cultivate their love as violence erupts all around them in England’s Wars of the Roses . . .

Sandra Worth is the author of the historical fiction novel, Lady of the Roses (Berkley Trade, Jan. ‘08).  You can visit her website at www.sandraworth.com.

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LADY OF THE ROSES VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR ‘08 will officially begin on Feb. 1, 2008 and continue all month. If you would like to follow Sandra’s tour, visit http://www.virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/. Leave a comment on her blog stops and become eligible to win a free copy at the end of her tour! One lucky winner will be announced at www.virtualbooktoursforauthors.blogspot.com  on February 29!
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Sandra’s virtual book tour is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours at http://www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com/ and choreographed by Jean Lauzier.

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MY DEAREST FRIEND by Hazel Statham

Part of the premise for ‘My Dearest Friend’ came from a dream. I have very vivid dreams and after watching a programme about the Peninsular War, I dreamt that a girl, desperate to rescue her seriously wounded brother from Portugal, approached a duke to help her to bring him home. I started writing the book at, what is now, part way through the first chapter and then put it aside.

I didn’t take it up again for quite a while but when I had to finish working through ill health, I resurrected it from my files. Reading through what I had written, I was much struck by Robert’s grief and decided that he deserved a happier life. However, as a man of intense emotions, who loved deeply and protected fiercely, there were many obstacles for him to clear to achieve true contentment. In Jane he found his perfect companion but the treachery of another conspired against them.

It is an emotionally charged book and at times there appears no hope for reconciliation when the couple are driven apart. How much can a heart endure before it’s irreparably broken?

Hazel Statham is the author of the historical fiction, My Dearest Friend.  You can visit her website at www.hazel-statham.co.uk and her blog at www.hazelstatham.blogspot.com.