Tag Archives: the story behind the story

The Story Behind the Story: Maggie Brooke

The Story Behind The Story

It’s a pleasure to welcome a new voice to A Hopeful Romantic today. Welcome Maggie Brooke. I’m very excited to have an Australian Story Behind the Story, and Maggie’s novel, Guided Tour, sizzles in proper Down-Under fashion. If you’ve got AC, now might be a good time to crank it!

The brutal truth about the beginning of the story behind my story is that everybody kept saying, “Sex Sells!” so I finally decided to give it a go. The happy truth is that I love thinking about sex and it turns out it’s really fun to write about, too.

I came up with my female character first because only she could tell me where she was and what sorts of men she fancied. Once I realized that she was a wealthy white woman from Sydney stuck in Darwin then it seemed obvious that her antagonist should be a gorgeous Indigenous man. What would happen when polar opposites collide?

The story started to come unstuck when I tried to write about sex only because I was really liking both my characters and wanted them to connect on a deeper lever–and not just the one you’re thinking about! Louisa was so angry and confused, though, and Warren took such a moral high ground that a romance between the two seemed unlikely.

It was the setting that helped me out there. I have never been any place in the world that gets under my skin like the Australian Outback. The haunting cries of the curlews at night; the myriad of tiny yellow and purple flowers on a landscape where nothing should be able to grow; the wild scent of eucalypt and sand; the nearness of the sun and the number of stars…romance on a stick.

The Guided TourBlurb:

When wealthy Sydney socialite Louisa Smith takes a solo journey to the Northern Territory and gets arrested, she can’t charm or buy her way out of it because Daddy has cut off her credit cards! Stranded, she must work off a Community Service Order by escorting ten juvenile offenders on a guided tour of the Outback designed to teach respect for the territory and its people. This extreme punishment is made worse by her attraction to Warren George, their uptight, moral but absolutely gorgeous Aboriginal tour guide.

Excerpt:

Sitting on a stone at the edge of the camp, I watched the quarter moon climb through more stars than I had ever imagined. I wished Claudia and Suzanne, and even Dalby, could be watching it with me. I’d bet that they didn’t even know a sky could look like this. In a sudden rush of homesickness, I hurried back to the tent and retrieved my iPhone from my boot. I needed to SMS an SOS to somebody–anybody! Returning to my rock, I flipped it open, turned it on and…

Waited for a signal that never came.

I watched the words SEARCHING FOR NETWORK flit back and forth across the screen for five minutes before I gave up and snapped it shut. Outback Australia! I might as well have been on Mars. I tried to find the red planet in the black sky.

The night lay still against my skin, caressing me with an unfamiliar peace and the air smelled…I don’t know…clean. All thoughts of old friends and new enemies soon left my mind. I heard a curlew call, and then another and another, but I didn’t know what was making those haunting sounds and wondered if I should be frightened. As I sat quietly I heard a door close behind me and turned to see Warren leaving the men’s shower block. He had not seen me.

He walked slowly, looking at the sky, wearing only a red sarong tied around his waist. His damp hair curled loosely around his ears and neck. The pale moonlight painted his muscular chest in dark relief and his legs were lithe and supple, the muscles rippling as he walked. He carried a towel and shaving kit and passed close by my stone. I made no sound, didn’t even breathe, but he paused, as if suddenly aware of my presence. He turned slowly to face me, eyebrows raised;  surprised it was me.

“Miss Smith? You’re outside alone?”

“Guilty as charged.” I shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. What’s making that noise?”

“Curlews. The old people say their call is lost souls calling to each other.”

“That’s what it sounds like. Are they dangerous?”

“Of course not, they’re just birds.”

“An emu’s just a bird but I wouldn’t want to get up close and personal with one.” I smiled. It was nice talking to him without rules and kids surrounding us. “Do you take these trips often?”

“This is…” He started to say, but then his eyes dropped to my singlet where those naughty nipples strained against the cloth. He looked up at the stars and frowned. “It’ll be another long day tomorrow,” he said harshly. “You should get back to your tent now.”

His rudeness was uncalled for and my anger rose again, spoiling the night. Then I became aware of another rising. He was standing very close, and his scarcely clothed body was inches from my face–which was level with his groin. His sarong began to dance and gape and I couldn’t take my eyes away. I was mesmerized. He crossed his hands, strategically using the towel and shaving kit to hide his interest and turned away, frowning.

“Go to bed,” he commanded and rushed away to his own tent.

 

Find me:

http://www.maggiebrooke11.webs.com

http://www.maggiebrooke11.com

maggiebrooke@hotmail.com

 

Find book:

http://www.logical-lust.com/guidedtour.html

Rebecca Bond Shares the Story Behind Painted Pussycat

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been featuring a different one of the fabulous writers from the stunning Sweetmeats Press anthology, Immoral Views, and this week’s very talented author is the yummy Rebecca Bond, whose sexy story, Painted Pussycat has a lot more than just ink on the page. Welcome, Rebecca!

Mr Black of Sweetmeats fame is a fascinating chap, full of mystery and intrigue, and when I was first introduced to him by a fellow author I didn’t know what to think as he politely introduced himself before asking me to contribute to a new anthology he was producing. I’m still very new to this game so obviously I blushed from ear to ear and accepted his offer (if I remember rightly, I purchasing a rather nifty little Sh! bullet at that very moment – probably the main cause of my blushes).

So, the theme was set. Voyeurism. Oooooo, tough one for this little miss. I had an idea that had been rattling around my brain for a while, a story based solely on one woman’s love for tattoos, and so this theme finally allowed the idea to jump from my head and out onto the page. I was also thinking of the challenge for the artist who had been drafted in to illustrate Immoral Views; how on earth would he interpret my tattoo-laced words into imagery? *cue sadistic laugh*

The art of inking is something I’ve long been fascinated with. I had my first tattoo when I was only eighteen. Yes, I was a bit tipsy (Dutch courage for the pain, but also not recommended for going under the needle as it increases the bleed!) and if I remember rightly I was skiving off college for the occasion, but from the very moment I was pushed into the artist’s chair, I felt a strange sense of peace. As the needle began to pierce the skin of my back I felt the tension and stress seep from my body and that for me was enough.

What better feeling than one ultimate stress reliever coupled with another – inking and sex! I’m a fan of both so it’s an utter no-brainer – mash them up and what do you get? Well, my friends, you get Painted Pussycat; the story of one young woman’s journey through inking, from the very first prick of the needle, to the full bodied back piece applied whilst suspended on high upon a St Andrews cross on the stage in the concealed theatre in the back of Ink Majestic. May I introduce you to the young Poppy, the innocent Rexxie Belle…?

Excerpt:

“I’ve seen the way you look at them, Poppy,” she said, her voice husky. “I’ve seen the way you look at me too.”

I looked up at her, dazed and confused, not understanding what she meant. She took my hand and led me through the salon and to a curtained doorway at the rear of the shop. I followed warily, but eager to please. We walked down a long corridor to another room. Her office.

Glancing around, I absorbed the decor – the plush furniture, soft and velvet, the bright coloured cushions that dappled the chairs, the art on the walls, abstract designs and intriguing photography hung in ornate frames. Her desk was in the centre. Dark mahogany. Smooth. Shiny.

“Why do you come here?”

I met her gaze.

“I don’t know.”

She smirked at me and came closer, circling my body like a panther stalking its prey.

“Yes you do. Admit it, Poppy, you come here because it makes you feel good.”

I nodded, what else could I do? She was right after all, I did go there because it made me feel good. It made me feel so fuckin’ good, so fuckin’ alive, so fuckin’. . .horny. She went to her desk, opening a drawer and taking out a tattoo gun. I watched, mouth agape, as she lined up the equipment. She plugged in the gun and looked up at me, a smirk on her face and a wicked gleam in her eye.

“Sit,” she said again, tapping the top of the desk with her left hand.

Gripped by fear, I shook my head. No way was I going to let Carrie loose on my skin with that needle. I didn’t even want a tattoo. Or did I? I eyed her cautiously, but soon gave in and jumped onto the desk. She pushed me gently onto my back, her fingers toying with the hem of my plain white tee before pulling it up to expose my torso.

“It’s okay, Poppy. It’s just a little tattoo, nothing to worry about.” She was delighting in this, in the power the ink had over me.

My skin prickled as she brushed her fingertips over me, goose-bumps dappling my flesh.

“Just relax.”

I closed my eyes as the sound of the gun filled the room, the buzz hitting my senses with startling intensity. My loins sizzled in anticipation of the first prick of the needle. Nervous excitement coursed through my veins and as Carrie prepped my exposed flesh I felt myself falling under her spell.

“You ready?” She asked as I stared up at her through hooded lids.

“Yes.”

God, it was amazing! As soon as the needle of the gun pierced my flesh I was under, hypnotised by the way it scratched my skin. I didn’t know what she was drawing onto me and I didn’t care. All I cared about in that moment was the throbbing between my thighs. It felt so good and as Carrie lifted the gun from my skin and announced that she was finished, I was begging for more.

“Oh no, pussycat, not yet,” she purred against my ear.

Putting the gun down, she pulled off her gloves and reached for the button of my jeans. She popped it open and tugged the black denim over my hips and down my legs. I looked at her, a smile on my face. I felt lazy and languid, letting her petite hand cup my mound and her warmth seep through the fabric of my panties. Another revelation. I clearly wasn’t averse to same sex relations.

It felt so right, the way she stroked my pussy through my panties, teasing me with gentle slaps to my cunt. I was mewing for her, bucking my hips up towards her hand, begging for more of her tantalising touch.

“You’re so wet, pussycat,” she said. “This is from the ink. The tattoo is a powerful thing and should never, ever be taken lightly.”

I looked at her and nodded, “it’s beautiful. I want more.”

Her hand was gone in an instant. As were my panties. She pushed my ankles until my feet were flat on the desk and my legs were parted wide. God! It felt so good the first time she touched me like that, her tongue snaking out from between parted lips and licking the length of my slit.

I cried out in unexpected pleasure as she lapped at my cunt, like the cat that had finally got the cream. Her cute, red lips latched onto my clit and lavished the swollen bead with attention. It was better than anything I had experienced. Whether it was due to the adrenaline racing through my veins from the tattoo or because I was finally being touched by another I do not know, but the orgasm that raged through my body was far superior to anything I had ever experienced at the hands of myself.

I glanced down and met her eyes, watching as she continued to feast on my sex, writhing as she nipped and nibbled her way along one plump pussy lip and then the other. She slid a finger inside my warmth and I came again, climaxing as I had never done before.

Carrie stood, smiling as she gazed down at me.

“Here,” she said, “take my hand.”

I grabbed her hand and let her pull me from the desk. I followed her over to the full length mirror that stood in the corner of her office. She touched my skin where the tattoo now existed and whispered in my ear, “beautiful, pussycat.”

“Pussycat?” I asked as she said what appeared to be my new nickname again.

Her nails grazed across my hip and my pulse raced.

“Yes, a perfect nickname for the new pet of Ink Majestic, don’t you think?”

“I. . .er. . .I don’t understand.”

“Poppy, darling, I saw the potential in you as soon as you walked through our door. The way you watched your friend get her tattoo, I recognised it instantly.”

I still didn’t understand. “Recognised what?”

Carrie giggled and kissed my neck lightly, “that you are the one we’ve been waiting for. You, darling Poppy, are The Art Project.”

I gulped. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the name alone terrified me. Her hand smoothed its way down my torso and back to my pussy, cupping me before slipping a finger through my folds.

“You’re so wet. Yes, I think you will fit in at The House just fine.”

 

Buy Links:

Painted Pussycat for Kindle

Immoral Views for Kindle or Print

About Rebecca Bond
Bewitched by the vibrancy of city life, Rebecca Bond currently resides in London with her fiancé, The Boy. Originally from the sleepy English fenlands, she uses a combination of urban and rural inspiration to carve stories steeped in fantasy. Often found spinning her biro of an eve, Rebecca transforms the day’s grind into scribblings of mystique.
Only a year into ‘public’ writing, Rebecca’s debut publications appear in the anthologies, Uniform Behaviour, Seducing the Myth (ed. Lucy Felthouse) and Immoral Views (Sweetmeats Press). She also has short stories in a variety of erotic sub-genres published by Ravenous Romance, Noble Romance, Oysters and Chocolate, The Erotic Woman, Erotica for All and Every Night Erotica.
Further information about Rebecca’s latest releases can be found at www.missrebeccabond.co.uk
Find Rebecca at:
http://www.missrebeccabond.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/MissRebeccaBond

Looking for the Wintergreen with Trish DeVene

I’m so excited to have Trish DeVene as my guest on A Hopeful Romantic! Her story, ‘Looking for the Wintergreen,’ from the fabulous Oysters and Chocolate anthology, Nice Girls, Naughty Sex, is one of my favourite stories ever, erotica or otherwise. Trish is going to tell us the story behind ‘Looking for the Wintergreen.’  Welcome Trish!

Walking down a market street in Tokyo, a friend of mine saw a man with a long shine of black hair, cat-like in his stride—a person who halted her own casual walk and made her turn for a gasping gaze. That was twenty years ago and she hasn’t forgotten him, or that moment. Why not? What did it awaken? How did he pass over the threshold of her mind and become housed in her?

Another friend once told me that he and a friend were pulling up beside a car in traffic—a woman driver whose blonde hair flowed over her left shoulder, and whose smooth tanned arm draped lazily the wheel. They sat straighter; they waited for the car to press evenly beside hers. And they asked, “But does she have the face? Does she?” Oh, she did, and the friend wrote a poem because the moment was monumental, stamping his memory. For that moment, had she awakened something, created change? A new poem was born.

Every now and then, we happen upon something or someone that for unknown reasons snares us. I wonder if beauty catches the eye but something else deeper draws the longer look and holds the memory: the mystery, the potential, something sleeping in ourselves come to life? Or is perfect beauty—in nature, art, or people—a balm for the pain in life?

When I began writing “Looking for the Wintergreen,” I wanted quite simply to explore the possibilities of a beautiful man entering a sensitive, withdrawn young woman’s world. Aurelio literally steps up the porch steps, and through the front door of Leah’s remote family home that’s buried under swoops of snow. Except he isn’t made from their remote, white landscape; he is brown-skinned and warm, fit for a house of adobe. In him, Leah sees the summer valley at sunset, the gentle slopes that ride out to the tree line.

Does beauty make us vulnerable? Leah quickly monitors herself, noting as he passes casually into the house that care should be taken in crossing thresholds. “Think first, know the destination, prepare. There should be commitment in any crossing.” No one has crossed this threshold since her father’s sudden and soundless departure from their lives. And Leah, like the house buried in snow, has buried herself in literature—lust and love relegated to daydream only, as the family tries to recover.

Her pain is silent, her loss of trust unexpressed. In books, she finds fascinating heroes who reflect her own desires; she has no need for the messy, disappointing, fleeting attractions of real life, the kind that only leave you vulnerable.

She wonders if this beautiful boy knows what he steps over and into? But when he shakes out his hair, darker than their starless nights, he smiles and his gold-brown eyes sparkle on her. His face is open with trust. And for a moment her fantasy worlds blend with reality. She wants him to step in.

I was a child of gothic romances and fairy tales with noble kings, larger than life men who made the heroine take a second, longer, ever-lasting look. My grade-school girlfriends would get mad at me, asking why I never liked any of the boys in school. It wasn’t because I had too-high expectations, wanting real life to mimic books. It was because, for the moment, my own imagination excited me more. I wasn’t yet intrigued enough to take that messy step out of self and into another.

When Aurelio crosses the threshold into Leah’s house, it is her moment to step out—out of herself, out of fantasies, to take a chance on real life. He sees her desire. He acts on it.

When her brother, heading into town, hesitates at the door, paused in the white slit, one foot over the threshold, Leah urges him out, waiting for the door to slam, and suction Aurelio in.

But Aurelio, in turn, leads Leah outside where the white world melts, where behind the tool shed, he approaches her, his dark frame, his lush copper face, sunlit eyes, the petaled lips that part … kissing him, like gulping a sky of effervescent stars. She relinquishes to her very real desire.

In the end, when they return, he puts his hand on hers on the doorknob. Snow melts and her home’s threshold is new and solid with trust.

For me, stories are like crossing over thresholds, whether we’re closing our eyes to step into a new world in writing them, or we are readers entering an unknown tale to sit in someone else’s skin. And how often in life do we come across something, like the man on the Tokyo street, that opens our eyes or our hearts to a new landscape of possibility?

Thresholds are about change, one room to another, or one life to another. Sometimes the threshold is defined by great circumstances. But sometimes it’s just the passing gift of beauty and our own moment of trust that opens a new door.

Blurb:
In a remote house, buried under silencing snow, a young girl takes refuge in the fantasy world of literature to bury the pain of her father’s leaving. She disdains the clumsy antics of her brother and his friends, certain that in real life there is no one worth relinquishing her trust to, no Arthurs or Lancelots or Sir Galahads.

But when her brother’s friend Aurelio comes to spend the night, she finds herself watching him, sleepless with fantasies about him. In the morning, at their kitchen table, where he sits in his easy beauty, he catches her staring, and she discovers how it feels when a man knows a woman’s desire. A man who won’t leave it buried.

Excerpt:

The next morning, rattling pans woke me. My mother was making breakfast for the boys. A hearty breakfast always for my brother. I understood. I was here; he was away. He had that freckled-face enthusiasm that she remembered in dad.

I wondered for a moment what she thought of his friend Aurelio. Would she flush when she passed him a plate of eggs? Did girls scramble for the desk next to his at school? Teachers change Cs to As when he flashed that smile?

I was angry in the melting morning. Icicles dripped outside my window, and I brushed out my hair, vowing not to shower until I had coffee. When I walked into the kitchen, his mouth was open to a forkful of scrambled eggs. He shoveled them in before he smiled. Anger dissipated. I was the melting icicle.

Between him and me were twelve tile squares, two chair backs, one oblong table with a cracked Formica top, and a great wash of blurring sunlight. No slim belt-line barrier this morning. It was as if the entire room were a blockade. I was braless under the sweatshirt I’d thrown on, and the soft fabric scratched my nipples, sharpening them.

“Morning,” I managed, skirting the counter, as far from him as our small kitchen allowed. He grinned again and bit into the toast.

I was used to pale: The kitchen walls a faded yellow wash, the curtains sheer to sunlight, and all of us fair-skinned Irish. He was a shaft of dark color sitting at our table. Raven hair cut a straight line just above his black shirt collar, only a sliver of brown neck, and his hair fringed down his forehead, meeting black, defined brows. He looked down at his plate, focused on food. And he looked warmer than a hot plate of fresh pancakes, that syrup-colored skin shining in the streaks of sun.

I was staring at the sheen on his cheekbone when I realized he’d looked up. The smile was gone, his warm eyes darker. He knew I’d been looking. I tried a small smile and picked up the coffee mug on the counter, but he only stared.

So this was how it felt when a man knew a woman’s desire. I bit my lip, immediately annoyed with myself for this foolish reaction. Bitten lips. What did that mean?

His arm stretched toward me, that smooth hand wrapping the cold chrome of the chair. Here was a bridge – fingernails, knuckles, forearm. “Are you having breakfast?” he asked, and the chair scraped toward me.

I held the coffee pot up. “Just this for now.” I ignored the bridge, poured the dark liquid into my mug, and started back toward the bedroom.

“Did you get to look at the paper?” he called.

The paper. Yes, it was on my bed. I was stalled in the hallway, between the pull of his stare and safety. I pointed toward my room and nodded. The coffee mug steamed, my hand burning around it. I felt my clothes dissipate with the steam, left standing in his stare. “Yes,” I managed. “It’s …”

“I’ll come get it when I’m done,” he said.

I trusted my feet to take me back. I sat on the bed beside the papers. I wanted him.

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/Nice-Girls-Naughty-Sex-Erotic/dp/1580053432

Author Bio:
Trish DeVene (also writing as Patricia J. Esposito) has been a writer of edgy paranormal fiction most of her life, but always knew she had a romantic heart and a tendency toward the sensual. Two years ago she decided to explore that sensuality and sold her first erotica short story. She hasn’t wanted to stop. She’s had numerous stories and poems published in anthologies, such as Nice Girls, Naughty Sex, The Cougar Book, Apparitions, and Lights of Love, and in magazines, including Rose and Thorn, Oysters and Chocolate, Clean Sheets, Karamu, Hungur, Sounds of the Night, and Midnight Street, and her GLBT vampire novel, Beside the Darker Shore, was released this year. Long-time married to the “boy-next-door,” she has two daughters and works at home as a copy editor, when she’s not off exploring the intoxicating realms of the imagination and chasing muses.

Personal Links:
http://patricia-j-esposito.blogspot.com/
http://patriciaesposito.wordpress.com/

Buy Link Beside the Darker Shore: http://www.amazon.com/Beside-Darker-Shore-Patricia-Esposito/dp/1615724168
Buy Link The Cougar Book: http://www.amazon.com/Cougar-Book-Jolie-du-Pre/dp/1905091567

Rachel Leigh Gives an Explicitly English Story Behind the Story

I’m happy to welcome Rachel Leigh to A Hopeful Romantic, and since she is speaking of things explicitly English, I’m already intrigued. Welcome Rachel!

When I was invited to appear on this blog, K D asked that some aspect of my post includes a ‘story behind the story’ aspect. So what is the story behind Explicitly English? I’m not sure you’ll actually believe me even if I tell you but here goes…

I am British, living in South West England which I have all my life so I know little else accept from an English way of life, English history and English customs. Apart from holidaying in the Mediterranean, a four-day trip to New York and camping in France, England is what I know best.

So because of that, I decided the heroes and heroines in my books would always be British because authentically, that is the best I could do for my characters – and my readers. So believe it or not, the story came from watching a very British and very popular TV adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.

However before you assume this is an historical erotic romantic suspense, it isn’t – it’s a straight forward contemporary erotic romance. The inspiration came from the traditional UK country living and the train journey. As soon as my heroine steps on the train, it is the start of her new life and her fun begins almost at once…here’s the blurb:

 Laura Markham needs to forget – just for awhile.  Be someone else for change – live as her parents will never have the chance to.  And for Laura, that means leaving the City for the English countryside and doing just what the hell she feels like…wherever she feels like doing it…

British stockbroker, Stephen Cambridge knows by going home to his country retreat two days early, he’s likely to surprise his contracted interior designer.  And when he finds out she’s the woman who performed the solo masterbation show for him on the inward bound journey, Stephen will do anything to further convince her to miss the outward bound train and stay with him forever… 

Hmm…quite far removed from the stereotypical British tweeds and Poirot twirling his famous moustache but inspiration is inspiration and we writers take it whenever and wherever it appears. I love what I do and hope to continue to write forever. One of my favorite things is attending my monthly Romantic Novelists Association (UK RWA equivalent) chapter meetings and listening to my fellow members nuggets of inspiration. Believe me, the ideas are out there, you just have to use a little imagination sometimes, lol!

Rachel loves to hear from writers and readers, find her here:

www.rachelleigh.co.uk

www.rachelleighromance.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachel-Leigh/266044849655

Thanks for sharing the Story Behind the Story with us Rachel! As a transplant to South England, no one will appreciate hot tales of the English countryside more than I, and this one definitely sounds hot!

The Story Behind the Story of ‘To Touch The Knight’ by Lindsay Townsend

 

I’m very happy to have Lindsay Townsend at Hopeful Romantic to share a little of the truly fascinating story behind the story of her exciting novel, To Touch The Knight. Welcome, Lindsay! Do Tell!

Thank you so much, KD, for having me as a guest on your blog today. I’m chatting a bit about my forthcoming romance, ‘To Touch The Knight’, which is due out in July – not long now! KD asked me to cover the story behind the story of ‘To Touch The Knight’, which I’m delighted to do.

In my novel, the heroine Edith presents herself as a strange princess with her own seductive costumes, language and customs. One of my inspirations for this particular desperate deception was a real-life fake from the eighteenth century, the Princess Caraboo.

This ‘princess’ was a young woman who appeared in a Gloucestershire village in 1817, dressed in unusual clothes and speaking a strange language. Upon investigation by the local magistrate, it was discovered she called herself Caraboo and later a sailor said he knew her language and translated her story. Caraboo claimed to be a princess from an island in the Indian ocean, who had escaped after being captured by pirates.

The magistrate, Stephen Worrall, and his wife, took in Princess Caraboo. She lived with them for several weeks, famous and fêted by the local community.

In reality Princess Caraboo turned out to be Mary Baker, the daughter of an English cobbler. When the hoax was revealed due to her picture in the ‘Bristol Journal’ being recognized, the Worralls arranged for Mary to leave for Philadelphia.

Mary did go to America but returned later to England and died there. It was the story of her unusual deception that inspired a 1994 film, ‘Princess Caraboo’ and partly inspired my own novel, ‘To Touch The Knight’.

Taking the story of Princess Cariboo as a starting point, I wondered how it would be if a woman felt compelled by circumstances to undertake a similar deception, in the Middle Ages and with far higher life-and-death stakes, and so Edith was born.

My hero Ranulf  also has his own inner demons to defeat through the story. He is a fighter who must come to terms with his grief at the death of his wife and also a mystery surrounding her death. When Edith and Ranulf come together, they are both in different ways lost souls who find themselves through each other. It’s set against a period of massive trauma and change, too – just after the Black Death of 1348.

The so-called ‘Black Death’  was  known during the Middle Ages as either the plague or the pestilence. It’s now believed there were two main types of plague – bubonic (in which sufferers presented with huge pus-filled tumors or buboes) and pneumonic, spread in the air, which killed in less than three days. Both struck Europe from the far east in 1347, spreading swiftly from Italian ports through Europe and arriving in Britain in 1348. There was no known cure for any of the plagues and over a third of the population died. It was a terrifying time, made worse by the common belief that the disease was a judgment of God.

It was a dreadful time, but for the survivors it was also a chance to better themselves, particularly for peasants, for farm labor was in short supply. Edith decides to use the chance in another way, in order to save herself and her fellow villagers.

Thank you so much for having me today, KD!

I’d like to leave you, if I may, with the blurb and an excerpt from the first chapter of my novel, ‘To Touch the Knight’.

Here’s the blurb:

As a pestilence sweeps medieval England, a low-born woman has only the sharpness of her wits–and the courage of her heart…

Edith of Warren Hemlet plays a dangerous game. At the knights’ tourneys across the land, among the lords and ladies, she is a strange foreign princess. But in the privacy of her tent with the other survivors of her village, she is but a smith’s widow with a silver tongue. They are well-fed, but if discovered, the punishment is death. And one knight–fierce, arrogant, and perilously appealing–is becoming far too attentive…

Sir Ranulf of Fredenwyke cares little for tourneys: playing for ladies’ favors, when his own lady is dead; feasting, while commoners starve; “friendly” combat, when he has seen real war. Still, one lady captivates him–mysterious in her veils and silks, intoxicating with her exotic scents and bold glances. Yet something in her eyes reminds him of home…and draws him irresistibly to learn her secrets…

And here’s an excerpt from the first chapter, where Edith encounters Ranulf for the first time:

Edith was walking with the bundled sheets to the shallow, slow-moving stream when she realized that another was there before her. A man, big and muscled enough for a knight but not in armor, was sitting on the river-bank with his boots off, dangling his bare feet in the clear water.

Large, fine feet they were, too, and very clean. She stood in the shade of a young beech tree, shielded by its fresh leaves, and watched him; this nameless knight. He was new to her, and a pleasure to look upon, with a trim waist and good shoulders. He slowly kicked his legs in the water and she noticed the dark swirls of down on his calves, less lustrous and straighter than his fair-going-to-russet shaggy, badly-clipped hair. She wondered if the tiny dark fish were nibbling his ankles and laughed softly at the foolish idea. He was handsome, she conceded, if long, clean-shaven features as regular as a mason’s new carving of a king were to one’s taste – and they were to hers. On his feet, standing proudly on the daisy and speedwell studded grass, he would be tall as a castle keep, but wiry, with a rangy strength she admired when he skimmed a pebble across the river.

Here’s where you can find Lindsay:

Lindsay Townsend, historical romance. http://www.lindsaytownsend.net

or follow me at Twitter: @lindsayromantic

 

Thanks for stopping by, Lindsay!  It was lovely to have you. ‘To Touch The Knight’ sounds like a fabulous read — even more so now that we know the story behind the story.  I’ll now be waiting anxiously to July to get my copy!