Some readers of my posts may feel confused by the polarised nature of my activities: on the one hand writing early medieval fiction and the other hand writing future fiction about exoplanets and other life poetics. I get quite confused by this paradox myself! However, the medieval historian Henry of Huntingdon, writing in the 12th…
Category: Historical Fiction
Welsh Castles
A review of Conquest: Daughter of the Last King and interview with me by Lisa Redmond has just been published in the February issue of Historical Novels Review. I told Lisa that ‘Conquest was sparked by my travels back and forth by train across the spectacular triple river estuary at Carmarthen Bay, with its string…
You never know how the past will turn out*
It’s interesting to think about how contemporary details find their way into historical fiction. I’m not talking about errors and anachronisms, but how writers use what they see and hear around them and turn it into something else in their fiction. The locusts kept in a classroom by the creepy tutor in my new novel,…
The medieval Welsh Helen of Troy?
My new novel Conquest: Daughter of the Last King is published by Impress Books next week and is the first in a trilogy about Nest ferch Rhys – the daughter of the last independent Welsh king at the end of the 11th century. Nest is a controversial historical figure. She makes significant appearances in medieval…
Between historical fiction and historical research
In my historical novels I’m always imagining in the gaps and with the mysteries: what happened to the 10th century Viscountess Emma of Limoges during the three years she was held for ransom by Vikings before her husband paid up? (The Viking Hostage) why did the 11th century Count Ramon Berenger of Barcelona kidnap…
Guest Post on The Viking Hostage
The Viking Hostage has been a bestseller in Medieval books on Amazon Australia Kindle throughout December. A guest post by me on writing the novel has just been published on The Writing Desk Blog. http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/guest-post-writing-viking-hostage-by.html
Almodis Reader Comments
Have received some wonderful feedback from readers of Almodis, such as: Dear Tracey Warr, I would like to complain: I started reading your novel in the bath and hours later realised that I’d read a third of the novel, was still in the bath, and I was freezing cold.
Almodis: The Peaceweaver Extract
Prologue Roccamolten Castle, La Marche November 1037 I stand on the precipice wrapped in bulky grey and silver furs. My eyes are trained, like a hawk at hunt, on the steep road snaking up the mountain towards me. I feel the bitter cold of the granite ledge through the thin leather of my shoes, and…
Writing Almodis
Paolo Ucello, The Hunt in the Forest, 1470, Ashmolean Museum, inspired my description of Almodis on a deer hunt. ORIGINS When I enrolled on the MA Creative Writing at Trinity St David, University of Wales three years ago, the last thing I expected to produce was an historical novel. I imagined I would develop the…
Almodis Bibliography
Aurell, Martin, Les Noces du Comte: Mariage et Pouvoir en Catalogne (785-1213) (Paris: Sorbonne, 1995). Bachrach, Bernard S., State-Building in Medieval France: Studies in Early Angevin History (Aldershot: Variorum, 1995). Bloch, Marc, Feudal Society, 2 vols. (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1961). Bogin, Meg, The Women Troubadours (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980). Bonnassie, Pierre, La Catalogne…
Tracey Warr Writing 