Saturday News
May I just say that I love The Flower Reader? I love Rinette Leslie, so fragile and so ferocious, so different from Duchess Barbara (although I love Duchess Barbara too). I love Nicolas de Clerac:
I turned my head, and there I saw the queen’s advisor and secretary Nicolas de Clerac, costumed as Urania, the muse of astronomy, his white silk tunic and gathered mantle embroidered with scattered silver globes and compasses. There were blue and silver streaks of paint around his eyes. All the same, he did not look foolish or mischievous as the other gentlemen did; woman’s costume or no, if I had met him alone in a dark place I would have been afraid of him.
I love Mary Stuart, eighteen years old, already once a widow, French to her elegant and privileged and mercurial fingertips, glimmering so briefly against the dark background of Scotland’s grim and inflexible Reformation.
Ahem. Well, enough about The Flower Reader for now. Mark your calendars for April 2012!
Many wonderful reviews and interviews for The Second Duchess. Writer Unboxed, Coffee and a Book Chick, Tartitude (this is part II, which I’m highlighting because of the granddaughterly wonderfulness, but check out part I as well, via the link in the first paragraph), Realm Lovejoy’s Blog Realm (and check out her wonderful sketch of Duchess Barbara), Reading the Past, Sia McKye’s Over Coffee, and Theresa de Valence’s Reviews by TdV, just to list a few. I am following the excellent advice to avoid commenting on reviews of one’s own work, but I would like to say here that I am so grateful to everyone who read and reviewed and commented in any way on The Second Duchess.
In April and May, look for endcaps at Barnes and Noble featuring Showtime’s The Borgias—among the books in the displays you’ll find The Second Duchess. Alfonso, of course, was Lucrezia Borgia’s grandson and the last Borgia duke. If you subscribe to Showtime, watch for the Barnes and Noble spot featuring their fabulous trip-to-Rome sweepstakes—you might just catch a glimpse (a tiny glimpse, but still) of The Second Duchess’s cover.
If you’re a Goodreads member, consider joining the Goodreads group “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Book.” The Second Duchess is one of their two featured books of the month for April, and there should be an excellent, no-holds-barred discussion.
Link of the Week: Thorn from Jesus’ Crucifixion Crown goes on Display at the British Museum. This particularly fascinates me because the thorn (wherever it might have actually come from) is wrapped in a strand of Mary Queen of Scots’ pearls. How did it come to be connected with the pearls? Did she do it herself? Did someone else do it after her execution? One could write a whole story around this intriguing relic.
And finally, the good news of the week: Rosie, one of the two “Booksigning Beagles” from my Second Duchess signing at Murder by the Book, has found her forever home! In fact, she and her litter-sister Portia were adopted together, so they will not be separated. I will update you all on Dulcie, the other darling Booksigning Beagle, when I have more news.
The Real Silver Casket
Am deep in sixteenth-century Scotland—want to join me? Here’s a link to photographs and details of the real silver casket which may (or may not, no one knows for sure, and of course the things no one knows for sure make the most delicious historical fiction) have held the “casket letters” which besmirched Queen Mary Stuart’s reputation forever.
Hamilton Palace : Treasures of the Palace : Lennoxlove
Where did the casket come from? What was its history before Queen Mary decided to use it to lock up her letters? (If she did.) If it’s fifteenth-century work, could the crossed F’s under a crown (if they were ever actually engraved on the casket, and not simply embroidered on the case) refer to Francois I instead of Francois II? Could its history have brought evil fortune to the queen? Could it even have been cursed? And if so, by whom?
So many questions to answer. Such fun!
Her Last Letter
Last week the National Library of Scotland offered a week-long opportunity for visitors to see the last letter of Mary Queen of Scots, written only a few hours before she was executed at Fotheringay Castle. For preservation reasons, the letter is put on display only rarely.
The letter is directed to her brother-in-law Henri III, the king of France, and dated 8 February, 1587. It closes with the phrase, “Wednesday, at two in the morning.” When you look at the images you can see blurry splotches, particularly on the first page. Was Mary crying? Or are the blotches the product of the many hands through which the letter passed after her death?
The letter itself is remarkably cool and rational, the writing steady, the lines even. What was Mary thinking as she wrote it, in the middle of the night, knowing she would be taken to a scaffold and publicly beheaded when the morning arrived?
Readers and writers of historical fiction don’t always agree about how much of our art should be history and how much should be fiction. This, to me, is a good example. The letter remains; we know Mary wrote it. We have her words. We know something of what she did before and after she wrote it. But what was she truly thinking and feeling? Ah, now that is where the storytelling comes in…
The Second Duchess
Read the First Chapter
The Second Duchess is available on iBookstore!
