Interview with Karen Odden, author of A TRACE OF DECEIT

When I visited my intrepid agent Josh Getzler at HGLiterary last June, he offered me, as a parting gift, a selection of novels that he had represented. The blue cover of A DANGEROUS DUET (William Morrow, 2018), a Victorian mystery written by Karen Odden, immediately caught my eye. I so enjoyed reading it that when I recently saw Karen promoting her latest release, A TRACE OF DECEIT (William Morrow, 2019), I reached out to her on social media. Turns out we have a lot in common (besides our industrious and generous agent!). Like me, Karen has a doctorate in literature and writes novels set in the era of her academic specialty. Unlike me, she has been published three times over and has another book in the pipeline. She graciously agreed to answer some questions about her background, her novels, and her writing career. Sample her expertise and engaging voice in the interview below, and you'll be eager to read her exceptional mysteries for yourself. I know I can't wait to get my hands on A TRACE OF DECEIT!

1. Your three books all take place in London during the Victorian era (1870s). How did you become interested in this time period? Why does it fascinate you so? 

Years ago, I wrote my PhD dissertation at NYU on Victorian railway disasters. It probably seems odd to most of us, but people were obsessed with them—sort of the way we’re riveted by computer hacking or terrorism. Accounts of train wrecks appeared in novels, medical literature, newspaper accounts, parliamentary papers, legal trial reports, and so on. In order to understand their power in the public imagination, I studied Victorian literature and history, especially London during Queen Victoria’s era, 1837-1901.

But as I researched, the 1870s became my favorite decade because so much changed so rapidly in the social, economic, and political spheres. It was like someone set loose a rollercoaster car! Some of this is because literacy rates were rising, so people wrote, read, and talked about social issues more. But many of the debates of the 1850s and 1860s led to a swath of new laws in the 1870s. For example, traditionally under British law, a married woman was “covered” by her husband. This meant she could not vote, hold her own money, initiate a contract or divorce, or inherit property. In 1870, as a result of the Married Woman’s Property Act, for the first time, a woman could earn and keep her wages (shocking, I know!) and she could inherit property up to £200. It was one small but significant reversal of a huge social inequality. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 finally made education mandatory for all children ages 6-12. A series of safety and labor laws were passed to protect works in the mills and factories. Furthermore, new institutions such as the Slade School of Art (founded 1871) were opening to women. And the Franco-Prussian War (1871) tipped the balance of power in continental Europe from France to newly-united Germany—with results that we’d continue to see well into the twentieth century. Yet all this change occurred during a decade that was smack in the middle of the longest stable reign in British history. I find that so interesting.

2. What sparks a new book for you first—a character, a situation, or a setting? How do you work to construct a mystery plot? 

At the heart of each of my novels is a story I read or heard that clutched at me and refused to let go. As I researched railways, I found descriptions of people climbing out of burning carriages, horses trapped and screaming in stock cars, railway surgeons faced with hundreds of patients lying in the surrounding fields. So a railway disaster became the propelling event in A Lady in the Smoke. Similarly, when I was researching for A Dangerous Duet, I discovered the brilliant pianist Fanny Dickens (Charles’s older sister) was forced to leave the Royal Academy because she could no longer afford tuition. There were no opportunities for Fanny to make the money—and even if she earned it, she could have been forced to hand it over to her father to pay the family’s debts. It felt horribly unfair to me. A Trace of Deceit was shaped by painful stories of addiction, told to me by friends. And my next book is about the brutality of the African slave and ivory trades in the 1870s. In 2013, I read a book that included accounts of how Belgian agents would seize African women and children and put them in cages with no food or water, freeing them only when their husbands or fathers brought back the requisite 70 pounds of rubber. Now, seven years later, I’ll put this story to use.

3. Do you travel for your research? What has been your most thrilling discovery?

I had been to London a few times, even before I started writing books set there. My most thrilling discovery was Wilton’s Music Hall in Whitechapel—not far from where the Ripper murders took place. It is (so far as I know) the only standing Victorian Music Hall in London, and it’s an amazing space. If you’ve seen Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows with Robert Downey, Jr., you’ve seen Wilton’s. As Sherlock, Downey is chased all over the theater by a Cossack.

Photo credit: http://www.wiltons.org.uk

Wilton’s was created in the mid-1800s by John Wilton, who joined together three houses in Graces Alley to make the music hall. As I walked through the doors, I could smell the hops, and I tripped over a nail in the wooden floorboards. I went downstairs and prowled around the basement with its uneven floors and plaster coming off the bricks. Then I came up and looked at the music hall itself—the U-shaped room, painted blue, with gilt and turned pillars. Instantly, I could see Nell in her piano alcove, and the setting for my story began to feel solid.

Photo credit: Karen Odden

Photo credit: Karen Odden

That trip, I also went to the Royal Academy of Music, where I found the 1820s class roster with Fanny Dickens’s name and a plaque with information about her. The music hall industry arose too late for Fanny, but by the 1850s there were dozens of halls in London willing to pay for talent—though men made twice what women did. And so was born the story of the pianist Nell Hallam, who needs to earn money for her tuition at the Academy and dresses as a man to take a position in a Soho music hall.

4. Inspector Matthew Hallam, the brother of the protagonist in your previous book A DANGEROUS DUET, reappears as a main character in A TRACE OF DECEIT. Are you building a series featuring Matthew? Does Nell, the protagonist of DUET, figure in TRACE?

Nell appears incidentally in A Trace of Deceit, but I don’t want to do a “series” in the usual way. I do have a few secondary overlapping characters—particularly Tom Flynn, my shrewd, straight-talking writer for the (fictional) London newspaper, the Falcon. He is based on my high school English teacher, who was the first person who told me I could write.

Frankly, I don’t trust myself to keep a protagonist interesting (or to stay interested in her!) to the same degree, after her first book, when the “big” issue from her past is resolved. Besides, I’m a research junkie. I’ve explored railways, music halls, the London art and auction world, and now the African ivory trade … and assuming there’s a fifth book, I want to move on to another aspect of Victorian London.

5. What do you love most about your new heroine, Annabel Rowe? How does she frustrate you? 

I love Annabel because she cares. She cares about her brother Edwin’s well-being. She cares about honoring his memory by finding out who he was before he died. She cares about telling the truth in her paintings—representing people as they really are, rather than some idealized version.

I wouldn’t say she frustrated me, necessarily … maybe she should have! But from the outset, I knew how she had to change. As a child, Annabel grew up the fourth person in a house with a very intense triangle: her father was fiercely ambitious for Edwin, who resented his father’s demands, and her mother ran interference. Annabel was always the observer because as a child, it was safer. Even as an adult, her habit of observing kept her out of the fray, and it worked (up to a point) for becoming a painter. But over the course of the novel, she has to learn how being solely an onlooker limits her. She needs to find a way to deepen her engagement with the world, or she will never become the painter she could be … and she won’t solve Edwin’s murder.

6. What authors inspired you to become a mystery writer? How does their work influence yours? 

As a child, my family spent every Sunday out at my grandparents’ house where my parents played bridge and I was left to scavenge in my grandmother’s library. There I found all kinds of books—bodice rippers, mysteries, suspense! I was probably around eleven when I found Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, and Daphne DuMaurier, and I’d say they were my first “adult” mysteries. (I had already torn through Nancy Drew, etc.) I loved the way these three women authors created vivid settings, fashioned young women characters who weren’t superheroes but seemed to have something in common with me, and had plots that wove together past tragedies and present events. I also loved how a single murder and a personal desire for truth could spin suspense for an entire book. A plot didn’t need to have fast cars and exploding buildings and bloodbaths to be a page-turner. The suspense for me came through the small scenes, the interactions among characters. Over the years, I realize I’m drawn to books that have some of these qualities—Tana French’s books and Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves are books I reread every year or two. As far as being influenced, I like to think my books place the reader in Victorian London, where they will hear “Oranges and Lemons” from the church bells and smell the tallow from the chandler’s shop. And my protagonists, young women amateur sleuths, all have to learn something from their past in order to move forward in their present, and to solve the mystery in front of them.

7. You have now published three mystery novels. What have you learned over the course of these three books? Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? 

Oh gosh. I could write a book just on what I’ve learned! But I’ll pick two things that stand out. First, it’s great to start with a clear plot idea (a railway crash, say). But I’ve come to realize the importance of spending hours and hours on backstories for my characters—even the minor ones. Then, after I write the first draft, I go back to my backstories and revise them, which in turn deepens my manuscript. I have separate pages for each character, and I write their histories from their point-of-view, although that information doesn’t all make it into the novel. The codicil to “backstories are vital” is that although backstories need to be in my head, they don’t need to be in my book.

Second, after writing, I trim. By my third or fourth draft, the manuscript is about 120,000 words—and then, when I feel my manuscript is “done” as far as plot and character, and all the details fit, and I love it exactly the way it is, I slash 20,000 words out. It inevitably makes a leaner, cleaner manuscript—and reducing redundancy, or even omitting a few lines here and there leaves room for the reader to fill in. Readers feel more engaged when they have to do some of the work … and I’ve learned to trust my readers. They’re smart.

8. What has been the most exciting moment of your writing career so far? Have you ever been ready to throw in the towel? What made you persevere? 

Eight years ago, before I found my agent, I nearly gave up. I’d been working on the manuscript for A Lady in the Smoke, and some YA manuscripts, for years. I just couldn’t find an agent to take more than a passing interest, and though I’d taken classes and read books on writing, I didn’t know what was wrong with them. I remember talking to my friend Jody Hallam (for whom Matthew Hallam is named) about how incredibly discouraged I was, and how I could write for another ten years and still get nowhere. The uncertainty was terrible. She urged me to find a free-lance editor before I gave up. Another friend, also a writer, recommended someone who helped me get the manuscript in shape for submission—and I sent it out to ten agents I found on Publisher’s Marketplace. I heard back from eight, and two eventually offered representation.

Like Annabel (and all my heroines) I had something to learn: I need feedback at various stages. My advice is to find a strong critique group, or a mentor who will work one-on-one, if that suits you. Join organizations such as Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, who have resources to help you. And of course, keep writing.

The thing is, even if I had never found an agent or a publisher, I’d write anyway. I have dozens of notebooks and piles of manuscript pages and drafts of articles and essays that will probably never see the light of day. A friend asked me once, “Don’t you ever want to take a day off from writing?” I replied that it’s sort of like brushing my teeth; I could skip a day, but it doesn’t feel good. Honestly, I love writing more than I hate failing at it. And my reading and writing has brought me to a community with so many lovely, smart, talented readers, librarians, bloggers, booksellers, and writers that even if I never publish another book, I’ve won.

**********

Karen Odden served as an Associate Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and taught classes in English language and literature at New York University and the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She has contributed essays and chapters to books and journals, including Studies in the Novel, Journal of Victorian Culture, and Victorian Crime, Madness, and Sensation; for ten years, she served as an Assistant Editor for the academic journal, Victorian Literature and Culture (Cambridge UP); and she has written introductions for Barnes and Noble's Classics Series editions of books by Dickens and Trollope. Prior to receiving her Ph.D. in English, she worked as an Editorial Assistant at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and McGraw-Hill, as a Media Buyer for Christie's Auction House in New York, and as a bartender at the airport in Rochester, where she learned how to stop being shy. She is a member of SCBWI and Mystery Writers of America. Her first book, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today Bestseller and won the 2017 New Mexico-Arizona award for eBook Fiction. Her second book, from William Morrow/Harper Collins, is A Dangerous Duet, which won the New Mexico-Arizona book award for Historical Fiction in 2019; and her third Victorian mystery, A Trace of Deceit, was published in December 2019. 

Karen currently resides in Scottsdale, Arizona with her husband, her two children, and her ridiculously cute beagle, Rosy.

Learn more about Karen and her books by visiting her website.

Contest Winner

The winner of Karen Harper's MISTRESS OF MOURNING, 

chosen at random, is

Susan Higginbotham

Thanks to all who participated!

MISTRESS OF MOURNING Giveaway

Excited to read Karen Harper's new novel, MISTRESS OF MOURNING? Here's your chance to win a free copy, graciously provided by the author. To enter the drawing, comment below with your email address. Contest open to continental US readers only; entries accepted until midnight, July 31, 2012. Winner's name, drawn at random, will be posted on Wednesday, August 1. Good luck!

Interview with Author Karen Harper

Today, author Karen Harper discusses her latest novel, MISTRESS OF MOURNING (New American Library).

Q:  Welcome, Karen. Can you tell us a bit about your new novel?

A. I've always wondered about the first Tudors—King Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York, the dynasty’s founders.  But my fascination with Henry VIII and the later Queen Elizabeth Tudor always kept me researching and writing in that later Tudor era for my novels. MISTRESS OF MOURNING has two heroines—Queen Elizabeth of York (mother of Henry VIII) and Varina Westcott, a merchant-era wax chandler.  These women bond during the time Varina is hired to carve death effigies for two of the queen’s children lost in childhood.  Varina too has lost a son and when Arthur, Prince of Wales, dies under mysterious circumstances while on his honeymoon with his bride Catherine of Aragon, the queen asks Varina to discover whether Arthur was murdered.  The novel also probes the murders of the queen’s two brothers, the Princes in the Tower.

Q:  So MISTRESS OF MOURNING  is murder mystery (three murders of young princes) within a historical novel.  Why did you decide to write a mystery instead of a “straight” historical as you have with your earlier books like MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE and THE QUEEN’S GOVERNESS?

A:  The era and the plot just ran smack into these murders, all of which are yet debated today?  Who murdered the Princes in the Tower is still argued today.  Many blame King Richard III, but there is another possible royal villain too.  (Yes, that’s a teaser.)  Later, in the Reign of King Charles II, in July of 1674, during some rebuilding in the White Tower, the bones of two children were found in an elm chest that was covered by rubble at a depth of about ten feet.  This was under a staircase that led to the king’s lodging.  At King Charles’s request, the bones were interred in a white marble urn designed by Sir Christopher Wren and placed in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey, close to the tomb of their sister.  But who murdered them?  There are several ‘persons of interest.’

As for Arthur Tudor’s demise, that is yet being investigated.  Ground-probing radar has been used to pinpoint his final resting place beneath the limestone floor of Worcester Cathedral.  Professor John Hunter of Birmingham University has worked on the investigation, although so far the current queen has not given her permission for the exhumation of Arthur’s body to perform toxicology tests.  Of course, if Arthur had not died, Henry VIII would never have been king.  If the Princes in the Tower had not died, perhaps the Tudors would never have come to the throne at all.

Q:  So tell us more about the amateur sleuth for the novel, Varina Westcott.

A:  I found it fascinating that chandlers (candle makers) also produced waxen death shrouds as well as funeral candles in the Medieval and Tudor eras.  Best of all for this story, because their shops made these waxen wraps for noble and royal corpses, chandler often worked as undertakers.  So it made sense that Varina could be sent to Ludlow Castle in Wales where Arthur died to over see his preparations for burial—but also to learn if he was poisoned. 

Coat of arms, Wax Chandlers Guild

Another fascinating thing about Varina is that she has inherited her father’s talent of being able to carve death masks.  Royalty and some elite of that day wanted effigies atop their coffins for the funeral processions, and the effigies had carved faces of how they looked in life.  Funeral candles were also a huge business.  Even the poor saved for years to buy votive candles for their funerals—the more candles, the quicker they believed they got out of purgatory.

Q:  Does this novel include a love story as did your earlier Renaissance era books?

A:  Actually, there are two romances in MISTRESS OF MOURNING.  The marriage between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York has been much debated since he was a rather austere character, yet they seemed to have a strong, loving marriage.  I give the reader a glimpse into that and show how it effected their children, especially Henry VIII who is only ten when the novel begins.  Varina falls in love with Nicholas Sutton, an ambitious courtier who is assigned to guard her, then helps her solve the murders.  In a way all good writing is suspense writing (What will happen next?), but writing a murder mystery really allowed me to increase the tension and danger.

Q:  Any interesting trivia you picked up in your research this time—things you didn’t know?

A:  One thing is that the title The War of the Roses did not come into existence until 1762.  It was a term coined in David Hume’s book History of England, so I reluctantly avoided using it in the novel.  The upheaval that put the Tudors on the throne was really a civil war.

Also, this is hardly trivia, but I had no idea that the status of few women who owned their own shops was so low at this time.  Varina only runs her chandlery because her husband died and left it to her.  Unless a father, brother or husband deeded a shop to a woman, she could not own it.  If she remarried, control of her business, finances and any minor children came under the new husband’s aegis.  Also, women like Varina were not admitted to the powerful merchant guilds of the city—hers would have been The Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers.  Her shop could only be included through her brother-in-law, who worked for her, becoming a guild member.  (The one exception to this no-women-in-the-guilds rule was the broiders—embroiders—guild.)

Q:  So does Catherine of Aragon play a part in this book?

A:  She does indeed, and it is so interesting to see her as a pretty, appealing young woman instead of the sad figure we usually see in the Anne Boleyn-era novels.  I was interested to learn from the research that whether or not the weak, sometimes sickly Prince Arthur bedded her or not was a hot debate even at that time.  Of course, during Henry VIII’s later attempt to divorce her, that question was of key concern.

Q:  Part of this story takes place in Wales.  What was that like in the early Tudor era?

A:  It was still a place of legends, tribal chiefs and superstitions—and I took advantage of all that.  The area around Ludlow Castle is fens and bogs, deep forests.  I was even able to write a was-she-or-was-she not witch character.  The Welsh of that day believed their early hero Owen Glendower was coming back to throw the English out.  What a scary, great setting for a mystery, not that London of that day didn’t work well too.

Q:  I see the book has two different titles.  How did that come about?

A:  The book is titled MISTRESS OF MOURNING by my US publisher Penguin USA and THE QUEEN’S CONFIDANTE by my British publisher Random House UK.  The books have quite different covers too.  I think the UK releases of my historicals, which are making the bestseller lists there, are boosted by having the word queen in the title during this Jubilee Year and the royal wedding year previously.  I’m really looking forward to attending the Historical Novel Society Conference in London this autumn.  Any excuse to get to England for more research!  And it sounds like a great gathering of authors and readers.  Thanks for the interview and happy reading!

Learn more about Karen Harper's novels at her website.

MISTRESS OF MOURNING by Karen Harper

Lovers of historical mystery can find Karen Harper's MISTRESS OF MOURNING (New American Library) in bookstores today. From the press release:

"Varina Wescott, a young widow and candle maker, agrees to perform a clandestine service for Queen Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII in London in 1501. Elizabeth wants Varina and royal aid Nicolas Sutton to travel to the Welsh wilderness to investigate the death of the queen's eldest child, Prince Arthur. Soon the duo discovers one unsettling clue after another and they fear the conspiracy they're confronting is more treacherous than the queen imagined."

A heroine who carves wax figures of the dead and investigates the murders of three young princes...how could you resist?

Be sure to return on Thursday when Ms. Harper will discuss her novel and the research behind it.

Learn more about Karen Harper and her novels, both historical and contemporary, at her website.

Winner of THE IRISH PRINCESS

I apologize for missing the promised posting date for the winner of the giveaway of Karen Harper's THE IRISH PRINCESS. I went away for the weekend, and believe it or not, endured both a flat tire AND a dead battery, which kept me from home an additional day.

So now, let me put an end to the suspense.....The winner of Karen's latest novel is

Carol N. Wong

Congratulations, Carol, and thanks to all who entered! Be sure to look for Karen's book at your neighborhood or online bookseller. Come back after you've read it and tell us what you think!

Interview and Giveaway: Karen Harper, THE IRISH PRINCESS

Author Karen Harper has just released her new historical novel, THE IRISH PRINCESS. Yesterday, I presented the book; today, Ms. Harper answers some questions about her research, her writing process, and her heroine.

Q: You are known for your Tudor era historicals, and THE IRISH PRINCESS fits that category, but has a different “feel.” Why an Irish heroine during the reigns of Henry VIII through Elizabeth I?

Karen Harper: While I was reading about Queen Elizabeth’s friends and confidants, I found one of them was an Irish woman Elizabeth (nicknamed Gera) Fitzgerald, a woman renowned for her beauty. What gives? I thought. The Tudors had trouble with the Irish, and Elizabeth was often jealous of beautiful women. So I started researching Gera, who I learned, would have been an Irish princess, except for the Tudors’ persecution of her people. Yet despite the ruination of her family, the Fitzgeralds of County Kildare, near Dublin, this Irishwoman remained the queen’s friend for years and married the dashing Lord High Admiral of England. It was a heroine I had to know and a book I had to write.

Q: Was the research of Gera easy to come by or more challenging, since her early years were lived in Ireland?

A: As usual, when researching most Tudor-era noble women, I had to glean information about Gera from the “more important” lives of those she touched. That meant the Tudors, of course, but for her Irish roots, it meant reading books about her father, “the uncrowned king of Ireland,” and her rebel brother who got the family in trouble. Also, the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote a poem of admiration to “The Fair Geraldine.” (The Fitgeralds were descended from the Geraldines, which is where she got her nickname.)

Q: Were you able to travel to the sites used in the book?

A: I’ve been to English Tudor sites many times, so that part of the novel was easy for me to envision. My trip to Ireland was wonderful, and I spent time in Dublin and the Kildare area, but this was before I found Gera and decided to do a novel about her. So, since I could not get back to Ireland then, I was really helped by some on-site Irish researchers. For example, the caretakers of Maynooth Castle where Gera grew up corresponded and sent me their information as well as a list of sources to get through Interlibrary Loan.

Q: As in many of your novels, King Henry VIII comes off as quite a villain.

A: I usually sum up Henry with the quote, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The older he got, the more paranoid he became about ruining any family that could threaten his power. I’ve just completed a book with his parents as the focus, so I see where he got this obsession, but for a supposedly religious leader and protector of his people, his tactics are horrible and inexcusable. THE IRISH PRINCESS begins with Gera’s lines, “I was going to kill the king. He was dying but I was going to kill him anyway.” With all that her family and Ireland went through, I could easily empathize with her desire for revenge. The book, however, is not just a revenge story, for, although she wants to hate all the Tudors, she finds that she has much in common with Elizabeth and even Mary Tudor.

Q: What are your work habits? I know you also write in another genre, contemporary suspense.

A: Yes, for the last ten years, I’ve had a split personality as a writer, doing a historical and then a suspense novel and so, working with two different publishers. I must admit, it has been a challenge. I need to be careful that I take a break between each genre, because I need an entirely different voice for each as well as vocabulary, culture, even sentence structure. However, both “voices” seem to come easily to me, once I immerse myself in the characters and settings. Settings are very important to me. One of my author talks is “Setting As Character." As for my work habits, a lot of my ideas obviously come from my research, whether I’m writing about the Irish or the modern day Amish. (My website, www.KarenHarperAuthor.com starts out, “from the Amish to the Irish…”). In short, I’m a plan ahead author. I’m an early riser, so I get a lot done in the mornings and fade mid-PM, when it’s time to answer e-mail or just get away from the laptop for a while. At least my days are varied, sometimes 5 – 6 hours of writing, sometimes editing, research, promotion… I write, then revise about 6 -7 times, then print out my chapters, then revise again from there.

Q: Do both of the genres in which you write sell about the same?

A: Alas, no. Any book that has a contemporary setting (and in my books, mystery/suspense) has a broader audience than historicals. Some of my suspense novels have been New York Times and USA TODAY bestsellers, but not the historicals (yet!). The readers of the historicals are actually a niche audience, often well-traveled, well-educated and, in my case, usually afflicted with what I call Tudormania. However, as a former college and high school English teacher, I’ve been really pleased to have quite a few readers say that they used to think history was dry, but after reading a Karen Harper book, now they love it—it has come alive for them.

Q: All of your books seem to have a heroine who rises above terrible circumstances. Is that intentional?

A: Yes, because that’s what not only makes a rousing good story but inspires the reader—at least I hope so. I do look for several things in a historic heroine before I spend months and years researching and writing about her. First of all, her life must impact some well-known figures. Also, I’m looking for a good love story in her life—and Gera Fitzgerald definitely has that. Her love for sailing and her forbidden love for sea captain Edward Clinton give the novel a swashbuckling feeling ala Johnny Depp and Liam Neeson—even Errol Flynn—movies. I also need some sort of resolution or triumph, in short a happy ending. And I do tend to say with English, Irish or Scottish heroines, since those countries and their pasts are my passion.

********

Thank you, Karen, for this peek into your book and your life as a writer! Give it time -- your historicals are bound to become bestsellers, too.

Karen has offered a complimentary copy of THE IRISH PRINCESS to be given away here at Writing the Renaissance. If you are interested in the book, please leave a comment below with an email contact. Entrants must have domestic US mailing addresses. Contest closes at 10 pm PST Saturday, February 19. Winner's name will be posted Monday, February 21. Good luck to all! Look for THE IRISH PRINCESS online or at your neighborhood bookstore.

Karen Harper: THE IRISH PRINCESS

Author Karen Harper writes historical fiction as well as bestselling contemporary suspense. I enjoyed her MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, as well as THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS, which I reviewed here. Karen's newest historical novel, THE IRISH PRINCESS (released February 1 from NAL), is the story of a would-be Irish princess who is forced from her homeland and thrust into King Henry VIII's treacherous Tudor court. From the back cover:

"Born into a first family of Ireland, with royal ties on both sides, Elizabeth Fitzgerald--known as Gera--finds her loving, carefree world overturned when tyrant Henry VIII imprisons her father, the Earl of Kildare, and brutally destroys her family.

Torn from the home she loves, and with her remaining family scattered, Gera dares not deny the refuge offered her in England's glittering royal court. There she must navigate ever-shifting alliances even as she nurtures her secret desire for revenge. Beautiful, bold, and rebellious, Gera eludes dangerous suitors, encourages others, and holds close to her heart a private attachment to Edward Clinton, a handsome, ambitious courtier who understands her strong-willed spirit. And even as Gera works to undermine King Henry and win support for her family, she seeks to protect his young daughter Princess Elizabeth, a kindred spirit fighting to survive, whose future is linked to Gera's own.

From County Kildare's lush green fields to London's rough-and-tumble streets and the royal court's luxurious pageantry, THE IRISH PRINCESS follows the journey of a daring woman whose will cannot be tamed, and who won't be satisfied until she restores her family to its rightful place in Ireland."

I will review THE IRISH PRINCESS in the coming weeks. In tomorrow's post, Karen discusses, among other things, what she looks for in a historical heroine and the different audiences for which she writes. Plus, you'll be able to enter a drawing for a copy of THE IRISH PRINCESS! Be sure to come back and help celebrate the publication of a novel which promises to deliver an intriguing new take on the Tudor court.

Karen Harper Contest Winners

The winner of Karen Harper's new novel, THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS, is

Tiffany

The winner of a trade paperback copy of Ms. Harper's previous novel,

MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, is

june_spirit2628

Congratulations, Tiffany and June! Please send an email to

juliannedouglas05 [at]sbcglobal[net]

with your name and snail mail address. I will forward the info on to Ms. Harper's publicist, who will get the books out to you shortly.

Thanks to all who entered. I wish we had enough copies to give

to all of you!

Additional Giveaway: MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE by Karen Harper

I have an additional Karen Harper giveaway to offer: a copy of MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, which came out in trade paperback from NAL earlier this month. From Ms. Harper's website:

England, 1601. When Queen Elizabeth’s men come looking for William Shakespeare—a rumored Catholic in a time of Catholic-Protestant intrigue and insurrection—they first question a beautiful dark-haired woman who seems to know the famous playwright very well. Too well. She is Anne Whateley, born in Temple Grafton, a small town just upriver from Shakespeare’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. And as church records show—were anyone to look for them—Anne Whateley was wed to William Shakespeare in a small country church just days before he married another woman, Anne Hathaway, who has lived as his wife for decades. In MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE, Anne Whateley--who may or may not be Will’s true wife--tells her story. Stretching almost fifty years, from the rural villages of Warwickshire to the bustling city of London, with its teeming streets and lively theaters, it’s a story of undying passion, for life, love, and literature.

Again, this contest will remain open until 10 pm PST next Friday, January 29, with the randomly-drawn winner's name posted by Saturday morning, January 30. Please leave a comment HERE with your email address if you are interested in entering the drawing for MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE. If you are interested in both Harper books, please leave a separate comment at EACH post.

Giveaway: THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS by Karen Harper

Karen Harper has offered to send one lucky winner a copy of her new novel, THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS (reviewed below). To enter, please leave your email address in a comment to THIS POST. Have you read other novels by Ms. Harper, or is she a new author to you?

Contest open until 10 pm PST Friday, January 29, 2010. The winner's name, drawn at random, will by posted by Saturday morning, January 30. Good luck!

Karen Harper: THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS

Karen Harper revisits the tumultuous world of the Tudors in her latest novel, THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS, released today from Putnam.

A fortuitous encounter with Thomas Cromwell results in Katherine (Kat) Chapernowne, an educated "nobody" from the wilds of Devon, entering the service of the new queen, Anne Boleyn. The two women become friends, and at the end of the queen's brief reign, Kat promises to protect Anne's young daughter Elizabeth. Appointed Elizabeth's governess, Kat serves the princess with a devotion and dedication that complicates and often endangers her own life. For twenty years they weather together the ups and downs of Elizabeth's fate, moving in and out of the line of succession, suffering exile and imprisonment as often as favor and security. Elizabeth's true mother in all but blood, Kat alone is able to protect the princess from those who would destroy her--and tame the headstrong whims that threaten to rob Elizabeth of the throne she fights so hard to gain.

Ms. Harper has given us a new take on the Tudors by telling their story from the viewpoint of a character whose voice had yet to be heard. Kat tells the story in the first person; although this is limiting at times since she is often separated from Elizabeth, it provides an adult perspective on Elizabeth's youth and an entry into her emotional development. Yet this is Kat's story as much as it is Anne's or Elizabeth's. Motivated at first by her desire to escape obscurity, Kat spies and deals secrets in order to climb the social ladder. Eventually, the ruthlessness and variability of the Tudor court repulse her; love for her husband John Ashley and for her charge Elizabeth mutes and ultimately replaces her ambition. Well-acquainted with the ways of the world, Kat advises Elizabeth against the wiles of the power-hungry and helps shape her into the queen she will become.

Motherhood proves to be an all-important theme. Anne, though her execution occurs in the opening chapter of the book, remains a forceful presence throughout. The ring she gives Kat to keep for Elizabeth, a clever locket that conceals miniatures of Anne and her daughter, leaves Kat's finger only to adorn Elizabeth's person; the doomed queen appears repeatedly in dreams and warnings to both Kat and Elizabeth, refusing to rest until Elizabeth assumes the throne. Kat is Elizabeth's only link to her mother, for everyone else, especially King Henry, disparages Anne in order to prevent Boleyn "faults" from manifesting themselves in Elizabeth. Ever an admirer of Anne's courage and intelligence, Kat alone fosters the strengths Elizabeth inherits from her mother. Robbed of her own mother just like Elizabeth, Kat understands what the princess feels and needs. Her love is the only stable haven Elizabeth has in an ever-changing world.

Ms. Harper, who has written extensively on the Elizabethan era (she has authored novels about Mary Boleyn and William Shakespeare, as well a nine-book series of Elizabeth I mysteries) creates a world that is thoroughly engaging and fully believable. She knows her characters well and sketches the political intrigues of the Tudor court with a sure hand. An excellent read, THE QUEEN'S GOVERNESS will, without a doubt, become a classic of Tudor-era historical fiction.

Learn more about Ms. Harper, who also writes contemporary thrillers, at her website.