I’ll be back with my blog post later today! Stay tuned!
I’ll be back with my blog post later today! Stay tuned!
Regencies aren’t the only way Historical Romance can be Risky, which is why we invited Michelle Willingham to be our guest today! Michelle took a risk and set her books in Medieval Ireland! And her first book, HER IRISH WARRIOR, was scooped up by Harlequin Historical and released this past May.
Michelle graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and earned a graduate degree in middle-school education. Michelle actually enjoys teaching hormonally charged sixth graders who ask her fascinating questions such as, “Your hair looks weird. Did you dye it?”
Critical acclaim for Michelle’s debut book and first book in the MacEgan Brothers series!
“…In romantic fiction, a happy ending is expected, and it’s delivered in this excellent, plot-driven, page-turner of a book.”
-4 Stars, Romantic Times Magazine
“Historical romance at its best, Her Irish Warrior will please any reader who is lucky enough to purchase it.”
-5 Stars, Cataromance
1) First things first–tell us about your new book!
THE WARRIOR’S TOUCH is the second book in the MacEgan Brothers series. It’s the story of an Irish warrior, left for dead, who is healed by a woman from his past. The story involves both physical healing, because Connor’s hands are crushed, and emotional healing from a broken relationship. The heroine Aileen has to feed, dress, and bathe the hero, which made for some very sexy scenes! It was inspired by the Beltane ritual described in the book THE MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Ireland has such rich, evocative traditions, that I thought it would be wonderful to play upon the story of a man and a woman who become lovers on a mystical night of secrets. The hero Connor MacEgan does not know the identity of the heroine when they first share that night together…and it has quite a few consequences for them, years later when the story opens.
2) You’ve created a unique niche for yourself with the Irish medieval settings. What was your inspiration? What is it about the time and setting that makes you set your books in it?
I first visited Ireland in the summer of 1993 and felt an instant connection with the country. After visiting countless castles and ruins, I couldn’t understand why I had not seen many romances set in medieval Ireland. Scottish medievals are always popular, so I thought I would try to build my own world with Irish medievals. And there’s something very appealing about sexy, Celtic men who would lay down their lives for the women they love. I visited the country again in the summer of 2006, one month before I sold my first book in the MacEgan Brothers series, HER IRISH WARRIOR. By visiting12th century castles and traipsing around the countryside with an archaeologist who showed me ringfort ruins, I was able to add more texture and detail into the books.
3) What are some of your favorite research sources? Have you discovered anything unexpected in your travels and reading?
My “bible” was a two-volume set called A SOCIAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT IRELAND by P.W. Joyce. It provided a lot of the daily life information that I needed. I’m also a member of a listserve called Early Medieval Ireland, through yahoogroups. They are comprised of Irish scholars, authors, researchers, and archaeologists. It was through this group that I met an archaeologist who was willing to take me around to some of the sites when I visited Ireland. As for anything “unexpected,” I was surprised at how much freedom native-born Irish women had in the medieval age. They could marry and divorce at will, keeping any possessions they brought into the marriage. The most surprising fact was that the Catholic church was not yet under Vatican control in the 12th century which meant priests could marry and have children!
4) Tell us what’s “risky” or different from the norm about this book! (You might have noticed we’re all about “riskiness” here, LOL)
I think what makes THE WARRIOR’S TOUCH unique is that it’s a medieval book that doesn’t take place in a castle. It’s an intimate story of a warrior and a healer, and most of it is set in the privacy of her home within the ringfort. Because of his injuries, the hero must rely completely on the heroine in the beginning of the story. He’s incredibly frustrated at having his warrior skills taken away, and while he’s trying to train and rebuild his former strengths, they fall in love.
5) Tell us what’s next for you! Any booksignings or appearances coming up?
I am doing a series of booksignings in the Tidewater, Virginia area. The first is Sunday, September 2nd from 1:00-3:00 at the Newport News Borders. Then I’ll be joining a group signing in Williamsburg at the College of William and Mary Bookstore on September 15, also from 1:00-3:00. The last signing is September 29th from 2:00-4:00 at the Newport News, VA Barnes and Noble. After that, I’ll likely collapse into a heap!
In addition, the third book in the MacEgan Brothers series, HER WARRIOR KING, is the story of Connor’s brother Patrick and that will be released in January 2008. Right now, I’m working on another Irish medieval for Harlequin Mills and Boon, tentatively titled SLAVE TO HER DESIRES. It’s about a warrior sold into slavery who earns back his freedom through woodcarving.
Also, I’d like to give away a signed copy of THE WARRIOR’S TOUCH to one lucky reader. All you have to do to enter is post a comment below and tell me what you enjoy most in a historical romance! I’ll draw a name tomorrow and notify the winner via e-mail. Thanks so much for having me and feel free to drop by my website: www.michellewillingham.com!
(Michelle joined Amanda and Diane in Colonial Williamsburg this August for dinner at the historic King’s Arms Tavern)
So, I’ve been having computer woes all week (which explains the plain-vanilla, pic-free post!). Reading email quickly at work, or trekking to the library or my parents’ house to “borrow” computers has shown me how sadly addicted I am to the Internet. But not being able to peruse Go Fug Yourself or The Orlando Bloom Files has given me more time for reading!
And my reading this week took on a distinct theme, though not on purpose–they just happened to be the books I grabbed at the library after reading email. The theme was “Dysfunctional Families in Times of Great Historical Upheaval.” Or “Hoydenish Women From Dysfunctional Families, etc.” Two great books that I was really sorry to see end!
The first was Janet Todd’s Daughters of Ireland: The Rebellious Kingsborough Sisters and the Making of a Modern Nation. This was published in 2003, and I’m surprised I missed it before! I enjoyed Todd’s bios of Mary Wollstonecraft and Aphra Behn, and coming from an Irish family I love tales of Irish history. Margaret and Mary King were the daughters of an immensely wealthy Ascendancy family. Their mother, Caroline. was a great heiress in her own right, and when she married she held her own vast estate at Mitchelstown (it didn’t pass to her husband). Caroline was friends with Queen Charlotte, and lived part of the year at Windsor. The Kings were neighbors of the famed Lennox sisters from Stella Tillyard’s Aristocrats, the Duchess of Leinster, Lady Louisa Connolly, and Lady Sarah Napier. Strangely, considering her conservative leanings, Caroline hired Mary Wollstonecraft as her daughters’ governess for a time, which would have a powerful impact on their future lives.
Margaret, the eldest daughter, married an earl, despite being tall and plain. Mary was growing into a beauty, and all seemed well for the Kings for a while. Until 1798. Margaret was a fervent admirer of the United Irishmen (led by Wolfe Tone and the Duchess of Leinster’s son Edward Fitzgerald), writing pamphlets, hosting meetings, and later hiding fugitives in her cellar. Her brother George, meanwhile, was a loyalist officer known even in those violent times for being particularly atrocious. After the Rising failed, Margaret left her husband and lived with a lover in Italy for the rest of her life.
Mary, meanwhile, grew into more of a, er, domestic rebel. She had an affair with a cousin (a married cousin!), got pregnant, and tried to elope. She was hauled back by her parents and locked away in the country. When her lover came after her, her father shot him and ended up on trial for murder. Shocking!!!
I’ve long wanted to write a story set during the 1798 Rising, but it’s hard for me to see how to make it a romance. How to find a plausible HEA in the midst of so much violence? I’m not sure the King sisters could help me much with that, but they were fascinating.
The second book I read was Adrian Tinniswood’s The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War, and Madness in 17th Century England. Tinniswood also wrote the very good By Permission of Heaven, about the Great Fire, and he certainly knows his time period (I’d also love to write a Restoration story someday…). The Verneys were a large, rowdy, wealthy family who were also (luckily for us!) packrats, who saved over 30,000 letters, documents of the Civil War/Restoration period, which was the family’s heyday. Tinniswood’s style is very readable, and by relating these very complex times to one family, one set of characters, he makes it easy to follow.
The Verneys were also a varied lot. The patriarch, a dashing military officer, died in battle as standard bearer for Charles I. He left a stodgy heir (who waffled between king and Parliament before just running off to France for the duration); 1 ne’er-do-well and very annoying son who spent his life in and out of jail, begging his brother for money and marrying and abandoning women (I really hated him!); and 1 son who died at Drogheda. Plus a passel of unruly daughters.
This book had a little of everything! Pirate uncles, father/son conflict, madness (an heiress wife who started wandering around town taking her clothes off and laughing), dynastic marriages, a wife who fought for her exiled husband’s estate, and sometimes even tender love. Above all, the women were fascinating. There were a lot of them, and few were well-behaved. There were elopements (at least 3), an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, an aunt with a (gasp!) Catholic husband, a marriage in Fleet prison, another aunt who got into fistfights with her husband in public innyards. It’s stories like this that make me dispute whenever someone says “That would never have happened back then!” because it seems almost everything happened to someone at sometime. 🙂
This is a lot of info, I know, but I tend to get carried away by books I enjoy! And I felt like I really came to know the King sisters and the Verney bunch. When I put the books aside, I found myself wondering what they would be up to next! That’s the sign of great non-fiction for me, and I hope I can learn to put in just that sort of humanity and truth in my own characters. Though Margaret King and Tom Verney might be too eccentric to be believed in fiction!!
Who are some of your favorite “characters” in history? Can anyone offer me advice in plotting out a good Irish romance?? And be sure and send Good Vibes to my computer!