Author Archives: Hilary Green

Newsletter January 31st 2014

 

It is going to be a busy year! This is largely, though not entirely, due to the coming commemorations of the outbreak of World War 1, which have aroused interest in my ‘Leonora’ trilogy. At present I have invitations to talk as follows:

March 14th. Talk to Ellesmere Port Library book group.

April 8th. Talk at Sheffield Library.

April 13th. Talk at Ilkely Playhouse.

July 15th Talk at High Wycombe library.

Tuesday Sept 9th. Ellesmere Port Ladies Luncheon Club.

Thursday Oct 2nd. Manor Gatehouse Club, Burton.

But please note I am still open to offers!

Apart from this, I shall be recording the audio version of OPERATION KINGFISHER for Soundings which will take three days in March; and I have been invited to teach a course on Historical Fiction at the City Literature Institute in London over the weekend of July 12th and 13th.

Also, my next novel, APHRODITE’S ISLAND will be published some time in April.

In the middle of all this I am trying to get on with a new book. It’s a bit of a departure from my previous work, in that it is set in the 12th century and tells the story of Queen Matilda and her battle for the throne against her cousin King Stephen. It is not a period that has been much explored but I am finding Matilda a really fascinating character – married off at the age of 8 to the Emperor of Germany, widowed at 23, forced into a new marriage with Geoffrey of Anjou by her father Henry 1. She was his only legitimate heir after the death of his son by drowning but was beaten to the throne by Stephen and has to fight for her rights. What an extraordinary life!

Add to this an expedition to Canada to attend my son’s wedding in Edmonton, with an extension into the Rocky Mountains afterwards, and it seems I am not going to be at home very much this summer. Looks as if the garden is not going to get as much attention as usual!

No temptation to get out in garden today! It’s blowing a gale and pouring with rain. No excuse not to get on with some writing!

Review of ‘Lionheart’ by Sharon Kay Penman

 

I very rarely give up on a book once I have started it but I came close with this one. During my apprenticeship as a writer of historical fiction two rules were drummed into me. 1) Show, don’t tell. 2) Maintain a consistent point of view. Penman breaks both these rules.

‘Show don’t tell’. The early pages of Lionheart contain long passages of exposition, sometimes in the authorial voice but often under the guise of one character telling another what has been happening earlier or elsewhere. Penman has done her research, and boy don’t you know it! Apart from filling in the political manoeuvrings of the Angevin dynasty there are disquisitions on various topics, such as the rulings of the Church regarding sex within marriage. I had the impression that this was a historical novel for people who don’t know much history and there were moments when it felt more like reading a history text book than a novel.

‘Point of view’. There are three options open to the author in this respect. One is the first person narrative, which allows for a very intimate relationship where the reader is privy to the narrator’s every thought; but it has its limitations in that the author can only relate what the narrator directly experiences, unless they learn about it at second hand. The second is the third person narrative where the author identifies with a particular character and we see most of the action through that person’s eyes, while allowing for digressions into scenes where the main narrator is not present. The third option is the third person omniscient, where it is the writer who is telling us the story and who knows exactly what every character is thinking and what is going on everywhere. This is the mode chosen by Penman, but while this allows her to flit from one character’s mind to another’s it does not give the reader any one person with whom he/she can identify and whose fate becomes of paramount importance. There is a plethora of characters right from the start of the book – Richard’s extended family; the English and French court; the rulers of Sicily and Cyprus and their offspring etc etc. The book abounds with ‘Count this’ and ‘Count that’, cousins and nephews and step-daughters and half-brothers, legitimate and illegitimate, each of them given their pedigree, until I very quickly gave up trying to remember who was who – and soon after that, to care.

A particular case in point comes right at the beginning of the book. I have always understood that readers are like Lorenz’s goslings – they imprint on the first character they encounter and wish to follow them through the story. Penman begins by introducing us to Alicia, an orphan girl caught up in a shipwreck and taken in by Joanna, Queen of Sicily. I immediately began to wonder what part this pathetic little character was going to play in the narrative. But within a chapter the focus had shifted to Joanna, and then, just as I began to get interested in her fate, we suddenly cut to France and the machinations of Richard’s court. We do not return to Joanna until a third of the way through the book and poor Alicia is never mentioned again, except for one or two casual asides in her role as a lady-in-waiting. Why begin your story with her, if she has no importance whatever in the main narrative?

The first third of the book is occupied with the in-fighting in Richard’s family and the story does not really get going until he finally starts out on the crusade. From that point the narrative picks up pace and certain personalities appear out of the general fog. Penman admits in her afterword that for a modern writer it is difficult to maintain the reader’s sympathies for one long story of fighting and bloodshed but she does succeed in upping the tension and there are some well realised battle scenes. She labours, however, under one disadvantage. We know how the story ends. We know Richard is not going to be killed; and we know he will not succeed in freeing Jerusalem from the Saracens. So it is hard to build any dramatic tension. This might have been easier if there was one fictional character with whom we have identified and whose ultimate fate might be uncertain.

This is an unashamedly romanticised version of history. Penman admits that she did not originally like Richard very much until subsequent research changed her mind. In this book, he is the ultimate hero figure – brave, daring, honourable and clever. Perhaps. But he is also the man who ordered 2,500 helpless prisoners to be killed as a strategic necessity. Historians differ about whether he was a good king and a man to be admired. Penman points out, justifiably, that he was a man of his time when the main duty of a king was to lead his army – but whatever the facts of the matter, I found this Richard a bit too good to be true.

The romanticism is most blatant in the portrayal of Richard’s relationship with his Spanish bride, Berengaria. She is shown as a gentle, biddable girl who willingly leaves her home and family with the prospect of becoming Queen of England and who rapidly falls in love with her husband. Richard admittedly is not portrayed as being in love with her, but he is shown as a skilful and considerate lover in bed. The facts were probably otherwise. Berengaria was a helpless pawn in the political machinations of the time and we have no reason to believe that she fell in love with the man she was forced to marry. And as for Richard, his desires may have been quite different. There are historians who think he was probably gay. Penman discounts this. But whatever the truth is, there were no children from the union and no evidence that the marriage was ever consummated. Certainly after his final return to his own domains Richard neglected Berengaria shamefully and never treated her as his queen.

The same romantic attitude is evidenced in the relationship of Henri of Champagne and Isabella, the only legitimate claimant to the throne of Jerusalem. After the murder of her husband, Conrad, she is forced within a week to marry Henri, although pregnant with Conrad’s child. Penman would have us believe that there is an immediate erotic attraction between the two and gives us a detailed account of their wedding night to prove it. I am afraid that at this point the suspension of belief required to enjoy fiction failed me.

I found the author’s manner of writing dialogue uncomfortable a times. American locutions like ‘gotten’ do not sit well with pseudo-antique terms like ‘mayhap’ for perhaps or ‘naught’ or ‘wroth’ meaning angry. And I disliked her expedient of shortening names to avoid confusion – Geoff for Geoffrey, for example, strikes too modern a note. Maybe people of that period did have pet names for each other, but we do not know them and they were probably quite different from ones we would use now.

If you want a good, red-blooded, swashbuckling story with lots of historical background thrown in, this is for you. If you want a warts and all, realistic account of a particularly bloodthirsty episode in human history, look elsewhere.

Newsletter December 30th 2013

 

First I must apologise for the long gap between this newsletter and the last. As many of you already know, I was unexpectedly offered the chance to teach a series of Creative Writing classes on board the liner Thomson Dream, sailing from Lisbon on November 23rd to the Caribbean. As I had already booked a short holiday in Spain from the end of October this meant that I have only been at home for a few days in the last two months. I took a tablet with me on the cruise, intending to keep in touch, but the internet connection from the ship was so slow that it proved impossible to upload even a simple e-mail.

The cruise itself was an interesting experience and a chance not to be missed. David and I were flown to Lisbon and back from Barbados free of charge and had a cabin on board the Dream and all the privileges of normal passengers. In return, I was expected to teach for an hour on the days when we were at sea. Technically this only referred to the six days crossing the Atlantic but the class was so enthusiastic that I ended up giving a total of eleven sessions. There were only fourteen passengers in the group but they were a delightful bunch, with a great collective sense of humour. We had a lot of laughs, but also got through a lot of basic exercises in the techniques of story telling. They all seemed to feel that they had gained a good deal. I offered a prize for the best short story at the end of the course and I was impressed by the quality of the entries. Two of them took the chance to have a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the attitudes of people on the ship, with hilarious results.

Aside from the work, we had the chance to visit seven islands. Many of the smaller ones quickly become blurred in memory – a general impression of blue sea, white sand and waving palm trees…

 Caribbean island

If you see what I mean. The most interesting were Cuba and Jamaica. In Cuba we visited a mountainous area which has become a conservation project, turning hillsides which had been deforested by charcoal burning into a lush, green paradise. Havana, too, was fascinating – vibrant life co-existing with faded colonial splendour.

Waterfall Cuba

Street entertainers in Havana.

ARE THEY REAL

We also had the chance to visit the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itsa, while we were moored off the island of Cozumel. As someone who loves ancient history that was a definite highlight for me.

We got home on Dec 17th, so you can imagine it was one mad rush to be ready for Christmas but somehow by Dec 24th the decorations were up, the presents bought and wrapped. For the first time, I didn’t have to cook for the family, as we were invited to my son Christopher’s house for dinner – but I still had to cook the turkey as with 13 people to feed there wasn’t room in his oven for that plus all the necessary veg etc. It was quite a logistical undertaking, getting it cooked and over to his place while it was still hot. Good job he only lives ten minutes drive away!

Caribbean Christmas Tree

 Christmas tree – Cuba style!

I got home to discover a note from the Royal Mail saying they had tried to deliver a package which had to be signed for. I was just in time to rescue it from the sorting office before it was returned to the sender and discovered that it was the proof copy of my next novel, APHRODITE’S ISLAND, from the publisher Robert Hale – plus a note saying would I please check it and return by Dec 5th! Cue hasty e-mails with my excuses. It’s done now and the book will be out in the spring.

I also had an e-mail from Soundings – the company that produces the audio versions of my books. They are going to do OPERATION KINGFISHER and I had suggested that this time I might read it myself. They asked for a sample of my voice and are happy to go ahead, so I shall be doing that sometime in March or April. I have also been asked to give several talks about the research behind the ‘Leonora’ trilogy because of its relevance to the WW1 commemorations I shall be at the central library in Sheffield on April 8th and at the Ilkeley Playhouse on April 13th, among others. So if any of you are in the area, do come along and make yourselves known.

There are various other invitations awaiting final confirmation, so it looks like being a busy year.

My thanks to all those who have posted reviews of Operation Kingfisher – and best wishes to everyone for a happy and healthy New Year.

The Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick

THE GREATEST KNIGHT

Elizabeth Chadwick

In her author’s note at the end of the book Chadwick comments that the life of William Marshall was so full of incident that to recount it in full detail would require thousands of pages. She adds that it has been necessary, therefore, to sketch some of it fairly briefly. This, I think, encapsulates the main weakness of the novel. A great deal happens, but it was not until halfway through that I began to feel a real connection with the hero.

The early chapters describe William’s rise from the position of a penniless knight, dependant on the patronage of wealthy relatives, to that of tutor and later principal adviser to the son of Henry ll, heir to the throne and crowned in his father’s lifetime as Young King Henry. This is achieved largely through William’s success at the tourney, the dangerous jousting through which knights displayed their prowess with lance and sword. We see him develop from a lad known to his companions as ‘slugabed’ and ‘guzzleguts’ to a man respected for his martial skills and his unswerving loyalty to his lord. It is this loyalty and devotion to his conception of honour that chiefly characterise him, but apart from that I felt that the picture I was given lacked depth. He seems to have no close friends and his relationships with women are casual. Even when he takes a mistress she is marginal to his interest in fighting.

As the young King’s behaviour becomes more erratic and his enmity with his father more bitter, William’s character comes into greater focus. He is torn between his loyalty, indeed his love, for the young man and his horror at the depravity of his actions and I began to feel more involved with him. His devotion when Henry is dying and his grief at his death are genuinely moving.

It is when William decides to set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem that the problem of fitting so much into one book becomes most acute. Chadwick points out that little is known about this chapter in his life and she therefore dismisses it in one chapter. Such an expedition would warrant a whole book in other hands and I felt slightly cheated by the lack of detail.

The turning point in the story for me came when William marries Isabelle de Clare. She is portrayed as a fully rounded and deeply sympathetic character and as William learns to love her and respect her judgement I found myself warming towards him. But there are still significant lacunae in the story. Frequently we are brought to a point where fates hang in the balance, only to find that in the next chapter the problem has been resolved ‘off-stage’ and the story moves on.

I think this is in part a problem for those writers who set out to fictionalise the lives of known historical personages. There are either too many facts, or too few; and the author has to choose between embroidering some and skating over others. In this case, I think Chadwick might have done better to begin her story later in William’s life, with flashbacks to earlier days, rather than taking us through a succession of tourneys, which have little to distinguish one from the other.

At the end of the book William is only halfway through his eventful life and, in spite of these criticisms, I shall look forward to reading the next episode.

How lucky am I?

I have just been offered the chance to give a series of lessons on creative writing on board the Thomson Dream, sailing from Lisbon to Barbados – free flights for self and husband and all the amenities of the cruise included. We leave on Nov 25th.

The Sultan’s Wife by Jane Johnson

 I thoroughly enjoyed this book. From the opening pages the author plunges us into an exotic and unfamiliar world – unfamiliar to us, that is. We know from the start that we are in the hands of a writer who is completely at home with her setting.

The action takes place in seventeenth century Morocco, at the court of the Sultan Moulay Ismael. Johnson is adept at employing all our senses to create her scene. Visually, she gives us a picture of luxury and colour, contrasted with extreme squalor. She conjures up the scents and tastes of exotic perfumes and pungent spices and the sound of rain, or music – or the screams of men under torture.

It is a country subject to the whims of the sultan, built on slavery and terror; but also a place where beauty is prized and art and trade flourish.

In her two central characters Johnson has created people who grab our interest from the outset and our hearts very quickly afterwards. Nus Nus is a slave and a eunuch, but he is also a man of courage and integrity, capable great kindness. Over the course of the story we see him develop from a fatalistic acceptance of his position and the terrible wrong that has been done him to a man capable of becoming the warrior his tribe would have made him had he not been captured. At the same time, we learn that fighting is not in his true nature. Given a free choice he would be a musician, a talent that is to stand him in good stead as the story progresses. He is also highly intelligent. Originally bought by an English doctor, who treated him more like an apprentice than a slave, he has been taught to read and write in several languages, talents which have brought him to a position close to the Sultan. It is part of his job to keep the ‘couching book’ which requires him to witness and record the sultan’s sexual encounters with his many concubines, in order to keep track of any issue and their place in the succession. Seeing how he grows from this position of humiliation to a man with his pride restored is one of the great pleasures of this book.

The second character is Alys, an Englishwoman captured by corsairs and given to the Sultan as a concubine. Ismael is captivated by her fair beauty, but before being taken to his bed she must convert to Islam. She refuses and it is Nus Nus who is given the task of persuading her, knowing that if he fails both their lives will be forfeit. In the process, he falls in love with her himself and is then forced to witness her violent rape by Ismael. A child comes of the union and Alys is transformed. Having reached the age of twenty-four unmarried she has almost given up hope of ever being a mother and her devotion to little ‘Momo’ is total. The main plot of the book turns on the efforts of Alys and Nus Nus to preserve his life from the jealousy of Zidana, the sultan’s chief wife.

In Zidana and Ismael Johnson has created two characters to stand in stark contrast to her hero and heroine. Ismael is pathologically unstable, given to fits of uncontrollable rage in which he kills and maims without compunction, and which he seems to forget immediately afterwards. Zidana is a monster, in size and character. Clever, sly and ruthless she is an expert in poisons and a believer in the Black Arts. Between the two of them Nus Nus and Alys must steer a perilous course.

Half way through the book the scene switches to Restoration London and once again Johnson sets the scene masterfully. The city is still recovering from the Great Fire and we see the contrast between the great swathes that are still ruined and the magnificent new buildings that are rising amid the desolation. The royal palaces are as opulent as Ismael’s but in a very different style. Portraits and tapestries showing scenes of life replace the abstract designs allowed by Islam and the women, by contrast with the all-enveloping clothing of the Moroccan ladies, flaunt their bosoms for all to see. Johnson has fun demonstrating how easily some of the Moroccan embassy are seduced by this new lifestyle. We are introduced to a number of people familiar from the history books, like Nell Gwynne and Samuel Pepys. But here, as in Morocco, Nus Nus and Momo are in constant danger.

There are enough plot twists and cliff-hangers to keep the reader avidly turning the pages. A truly satisfying read.

Two wonderful reviews

THE LAST HERO:

I have been a devoted Mary Renault fan almost all my adult life. For me no book quite rivals The King Must Die, except perhaps Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - and this from a first class English Literature graduate and a secondary school English teacher of 27 years standing! I have spent decades looking for something as good without success, until that is I recently discovered the Last Hero, on the day of my 53rd birthday. Admittedly I haven't finished it yet, but I am finding it spellbinding. De Bernieres (I am a great fan of his too) was quite right in his praise: it is just like Renault. The prose is tightly composed with none of the fussiness of similar novels in the genre; and the period details are most convincing. Simply put when I'm reading this book I find myself there, with the characters of the story! Thank you so much for making my dream of another novel of the quality of The King Must Die come true. If you have any plans to set  another novel in this time period I would be delighted to hear about it.
(Stephan Smart via website) 

OPERATION KINGFISHER:
I am always excited to see a new book out by Hilary Green. It amazes me that someone who writes such wonderful, gripping and exciting stories has trouble getting her work published when there are other authors out there who write terrible books and hit the bestseller list. After her last set of books which took place during the first world war, Hilary Green takes us back to world war two once again and this time we follow the escapades of two teenagers, half French, half British as they try to make their way back to England to join the fight for the allies. Along the way they are faced with much adversity, but also make friends and gain the respect of the resistance fighters for their bravery. Their mother also has a bit of a side story as she struggles to accept that the Germans occupying her country and her home are just ordinary people who dislike the war as much as she does. Like all the books I have read by Hilary Green this was tough to put down, and even better the ending left me thinking there could be a sequel. I for one would love at least one more story involving these wonderful characters. I know that their adventures and acts of bravery are far from over as there is still at least three more years left before V-E day by the end of the book. I can only hope there will be a sequel or two out of this story. I will be eagerly awaiting Hilary Green's next book, no matter what it's about. (Leigh on Amazon)

					

Interview with Victoria Grossack

Victoria and Alice

Authors of Tapestry in Bronze

1 When and how did you first encounter the Greek myths? Was it at school?

 

When I was six my grandfather gave me a book on Greek mythology. The book was aimed at kids, with simple language and lots of illustrations. Funnily enough my grandfather’s first name was Homer. He hated the name – he made everyone call him “Duke” – but I like the fact that I come from the line of Homer.

 

2 When did you decide to write a series of novels based on the myths?

 

When I was 14 and a freshman in high school, we read Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. I felt then that the story would be more interesting from Jocasta’s point of view, but I was sensible enough to realize that I did not have the skill or the knowledge to write it. The idea stayed with me, and I finally reached a point where I felt ready to attempt it, in collaboration with Alice Underwood.

 

While we were writing we researched who had been in charge of Thebes before Laius came to power. The queen was Niobe, the one whose children, according to the myths, were killed by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis. Obviously the gods did not really kill the children! When we examined many myths simultaneously, we believed we discovered the actual murderer. That was one reason for our decision to write the Niobe trilogy: Children of Tantalus, The Road to Thebes and Arrows of Artemis; we wanted to expose the actual murderer. We were also fascinated by the people in the stories, for they are still influencing us today.

Front cover of Guardians of Thebes

Guardians of Thebes

 

3 You write in partnership with Alice Underwood. How did that come about?

 

We were colleagues who had collaborated very successfully on other projects. We discovered we both had an interest in creative writing, and especially in Greek mythology. We had tied for first place in a little short story writing contest, which seemed to be another encouraging omen.

 

4 How does that work? Do you do a chapter each, or do you work together? Are you in the same room, or is it all done by e-mail?

 

We often meet in at the beginning or the end of a book while we figure out the timeline and other major issues. If we’re in a busy time in the writing process, we’ll usually have a long phone call on weekends. And there are thousands of emails. Alice has 8 different folders in my Outlook: one for each book, one for general writing project emails, and another for other stuff.

 

It took us a while to figure out how to best use our writing strengths and weaknesses which are fortunately complementary. I am very good at plot so I usually do the first draft. Alice is better at visual details so she adds most of the description afterwards. The process is iterative: she suggests some plot details and I even do some description. She also does all the covers, so if you’re admiring the covers, doff your hat to her.

Front Cover of Road toThebes

 

5 What made you decide to focus on the Theban stories, rather than any of the other myths?

 

My initial fascination was with the story of Jocasta, and as that was set in Thebes, it led naturally to the other stories in Thebes. Our current project, based on Clytemnestra, has little do with Thebes.

 

6 How many books are there in the series? Is it complete?

 

We planned six novels and have written five of them. The novels are Jocasta: The Mother-Wife of Oedipus, and its direct sequel, Antigone & Creon: Guardians of Thebes. There’s also the Niobe trilogy: Children of Tantalus: Niobe & Pelops; The Road to Thebes: Niobe & Amphion; and Arrows of Artemis: Niobe & Chloris.

Front cover of Jocasta

 

7 You have obviously researched the period and the background very carefully. What were your main sources?

 

We have both visited the places involved. I spent a day with the archaeological director at Thebes, and he drove me around to some of the important sites in the area. I have also explored the ruins at Delphi, Pisa/Olympia, Argos, Tiryns and Mycenae. I went to Turkey, to visit the Niobe rock, as well as the statue allegedly carved by one of her brothers. Then there are the many museums in cities such as Thebes, Athens, Olympia, Rome, Jordan, Turkey, London, Berlin, Munich, Paris and New York. Besides that, we have watched documentaries, read books, and corresponded with the owners of several websites dedicated to Greek mythology. There’s a bibliography and a set of links at our website.

Victoria and the Niobe Rock

 

8 Do you think the original myths have any historical truth, or are they just folk tales?

 

We think that many of the men and women did exist. Fantastical elements such as centaurs and winged horses did not, but places such as Troy have been located as well as others. Just outside of Thebes are a pair caves which have been determined to be royal tombs. Legend says that they are the tombs of Eteokles and Polynikes, the twin sons of Oedipus and Jocasta. In Thebes there is still a fountain named after Dirke. Why was the Peloponnesus given that name if Pelops never existed?

 

However, in some of the myths, and not just the fantastical portions, there are contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, after the war between the sons of Oedipus at Thebes, what happened to the daughters? In the most famous version Antigone kills herself but that contradicts other stories about her. We research the different versions and choose carefully between them.

 

9 If they are just folk tales, why do you think they were made up?

 

They were made up for the same reasons that people make up stories today: for power, glory and entertainment. Someone trying to strengthen his claim to a throne improved his credibility by saying he was descended from a god. In some cases we even know who the real father was, and yet the hero still made the claim. Herakles’ real father was Amphitryon, not Zeus.

 

We have a better-attested example in later history, when Alexander’s mother decided that her son’s real father was Zeus, and not Philipp. She was trying to improve her son’s claims to glory. Then there are all the times that the Roman senate voted to deify various Caesars.

 

Other stories seem to be a combination of glory-seeking and entertainment, such as the fights with beasts and monsters. We believe that bards frequently stole from other bards, so that if someone had a good bit about a hero fighting a giant in one song, another bard might copy it into his song to glorify his own hero.

 

10 You have succeeded in taking the more incredible events in the stories, for example the sacrifice of Pelops to Zeus by his father and his subsequent return to life, and giving them a believable explanation. Was it difficult to see what might lie behind the myth?

 

We work very hard at providing natural explanations for the events which seem supernatural. We don’t believe in supernatural events and we don’t see why readers today would do so either. So when Tantalus offers his son Pelops as a meal to the gods, we had two major challenges: how to explain his return to life, and how to show the gods’ arrival. As resurrection falls into the category that we consider supernatural, Pelops does not actually die in Children of Tantalus, but is simply very close to it. How to have the gods show up was difficult, until I remembered having witnessed a meteor shower that was as spectacular as fireworks. A sight like that might have made the people of three millennia ago believe that the gods were descending from the heavens. We timed the banquet of Tantalus to coincide with the Leonid meteor shower that takes places every November. Of course the characters don’t know that it’s a meteor shower; they believe that the gods are on their way, but hopefully readers see both sides.

Cover of Children of Tantalus

 

Coming up with these explanations is a challenge, however, and so we have hesitated to attempt some of the other stories. Herakles is fascinating – we met him in Antigone & Creon, for his first wife was Megara, one of the daughters of Creon – but we don’t know how to depict all the monsters in his labours. They’re just too fantastic.

 

11 Roughly when are your books set, for example in relation to the Trojan War?

 

Our current project, based on Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife and killer, is contemporaneous with the Trojan War. The other stories are set one or more generations before. We have a huge spreadsheet for tracking events and characters to make sure that our novels don’t contradict each other. The characters in one book, however, may interpret the events of another novel differently.

 

12 I see there are Greek versions of the books. Do you speak and write Greek or did you have them translated?

 

Unfortunately we do not speak Greek. We read the alphabet well enough to drive around the country and to sound out place names. Kedros, our publisher in Athens, arranged for and paid for the translations.

 

13 I notice that your books are published by Create Space, which is a self-publishing facility. Did you offer them to mainstream publishers? If so, what was their reaction?

 

Yes, we had an agent who repeatedly tried to market the books and nearly succeeded with big names such as Penguin and Random House. The problem with Greek-mythology-based books is that they have an oft-deserved reputation for being difficult and inaccessible. We have worked hard to overcome this in our own writing – and it is a real challenge – so much so that when we get people to pick up the novels they find that they are far more engrossing and accessible than they expected.

 

14 What plans do you have for future books?

 

We have written five of the six books that were in our original set. We’re currently working on the story of Clytemnestra. We may write more together, but we have not settled on which ones.

 

In the meantime, I’m also writing some mysteries. I had an idea based on Jane Austen’s Emma and so I wrote The Highbury Murders: A Mystery Set in the Village of Jane Austen’s Emma. I had so much fun with it and the response has been so positive that I am working on other cosy mysteries, although in a modern setting.

 

Review of ‘The Children of Tantalus’ and ‘The Road toThebes’ by Alice Underwood and Victoria Grossack.

CHILDREN OF TANTALUS &

THE ROAD TO THEBES

(Tapestry of Bronze series)

by Alice Underwood and Victoria Grossack

These books are a fascinating foray into the world of Greek mythology. The writers have succeeded in taking the ancient legends of Pelops and Niobe and re-telling them as exciting and romantic novels. Pelops, the younger son of King Tantalus of Lydia, chooses exile after being attacked by his own father, and his sister Niobe runs away with him to escape a forced marriage. Their subsequent adventures take them to Athens and then to Pisa, where King Onomaius is challenging all suitors for the hand of his daughter Hippodamia to a chariot race. If they are beaten, their lives are forfeit and their heads are exhibited on stakes in front of the palace. In a thrilling account of the race Pelops, aided by Niobe, who arranges to sabotage the King’s chariot, wins, kills Onomaius and takes his throne.

From then on Pelops’ behaviour becomes increasingly unstable and autocratic, while Niobe’s apparently hopeless love for the the musician Amphion takes centre stage. We are introduced to the complex politics of the various city states and the varying characters of their rulers, which are woven into the ‘tapestry’ of the series’ title. There are enough plot twists to keep you turning the pages and the characters are vivid and sympathetic enough to make the reader care about their fates.

My only reservations arise from the sense that, in making their story appealing to a modern reader, the authors have lost the sense of strangeness, of a very different way of life and system of belief, that we get from the myths themselves. The gods are frequently mentioned and the need to honour and appease them motivates the actions of the protagonists; temple building and animal sacrifices are important ways of placating them. But I missed the sense of all-consuming power which placed religious ritual at the very heart of society. This was an era when, not many years ago, the King was ritually slaughtered every spring and his blood spread on the fields. Also, I feel that the character of Niobe, appealing as it is, does not completely fit the period. In their effort to create a feisty heroine to fit modern tastes the writers have given her competences that I do not believe a woman of that period could have had. Niobe is brave and intelligent, which could be true of a woman of any era, but her scepticism about religion and her ability to organise complex building projects seem to belong to the modern world.

Perhaps as a writer who has immersed herself in a study of Mycenean civilization, I am unduly critical. These caveats apart, I can recommend these books as an enthralling excursion into a world which is, sadly, becoming less and less familiar.