Ripples in the Sand, by Helen Hollick. Book review

Silverwood Books, 2012. ISBN 978-1-78132-077-8. 310 pages.

Uncorrected advance review copy in PDF format supplied by publisher.

Ripples in the Sand is the fourth in Helen Hollick’s historical fantasy series featuring dashing (ex-)pirate captain Jesamiah Acorne and the white witch Tiola Oldstagh.  The series began with Sea Witch (reviewed here earlier), and continued with Pirate Code and then with Bring It Close (reviewed here earlier).  The historical figures Henry Jennings and James Stuart (father of Bonnie Prince Charlie) appear as secondary characters.  All the main characters are fictional.

Former pirate Jesamiah Acorne and his wife Tiola are on their way to England to sell a cargo of tobacco from Jesamiah’s plantation in Virginia (not to mention some other valuable items that need not trouble the customs officers). Tiola is seriously ill as a result of the hostility of Tethys, the sea goddess; all white witches have difficulty crossing the sea, but Tethys has a particular feud with Tiola because Tethys wants Jesamiah for herself.  Jesamiah is coerced into carrying a passenger, Henry Jennings, ex-pirate and now on a political mission to the English government in which Jesamiah has no interest whatsoever.  All Jesamiah wants is to get Tiola safely ashore and to find a buyer for his tobacco (and the unofficial cargo).  But Jesamiah soon finds himself embroiled in family ties he did not even know he had, and then entangled in a political plot – at risk from an unknown traitor among the plotters, and from the deadly fury of Tethys.

Fans of the previous books in the series will know what to expect.  Despite now being respectably married, a landowner, and (technically at least) no longer a pirate, Jesamiah’s temper, tendency to jump to conclusions and liking for wine and women (not necessarily in that order) still land him in trouble on a regular basis, requiring quick wits, cunning and skill to get himself out again. Tiola’s magical powers and her supernatural conflict with Tethys give the novel a strong fantasy element. The back story of Jesamiah’s complicated family history, Tiola’s supernatural powers and their relationship is explained as required, so although Ripples in the Sand is the fourth in a series, it could be read as a stand-alone.  The scene for Ripples in the Sand has shifted from North America and the Caribbean to the North Devon coast, specifically the estuary of the Rivers Taw and Torridge near the edge of Exmoor. Exmoor is, of course, Lorna Doone territory, and some later generations of the notorious Doone family make an ingenious appearance in Ripples in the Sand. 

Jesamiah’s complicated family history acquires another layer of complexity in Ripples in the Sand – it’s a wise child that knows its own father, as the saying goes – giving Jesamiah a completely unexpected set of new relatives to come to terms with. Members of Tiola’s family also make an appearance, causing conflict in her relationship with Jesamiah.

The political sub-plot involving an attempted Jacobite invasion makes a dramatic background, and the Monmouth Rebellion and its brutal aftermath a generation earlier still cast a long shadow over some of the characters.  There is plenty of action, including sea chases, a naval battle, a shoot-out with the customs men and a jailbreak.

The fantasy plot revolving around the conflict between Tiola and Tethys worked less well for me; I am not well attuned to supernatural powers that actually work (as opposed to beliefs in supernatural powers, a different matter entirely), and I suspect that a lot of it went over my head.  I got rather lost in the time travel sequences, although I did like the cameo appearance by not-yet-King Harold Godwinson, a thoroughly decent man even when raiding and probably my favourite of Helen Hollick’s historical characters (he stars in Harold The King / I Am the Chosen King, reviewed here earlier). If I understood the supernatural plot correctly, I think it resolves a plot strand that has been running since Sea Witch; the question of why Tethys has an obsession with claiming Jesamiah for herself.

The political adventure plot does not so much end as take a brief pause for breath, and Jesamiah’s predicament at the end is clearly a potential springboard to a further adventure (according to the Author’s Note a further instalment is indeed planned soon). Jesamiah’s unexpected new family ties, as well as Tiola’s family, may also offer scope for further development.

Dialect is used to indicate regional origin and social standing, from the French accent of the Breton sailing master Claude de la Rue to the broad Devon dialect of the ferryman and tavern keeper.  It took me a little while to ‘tune in’ to some of the accents, especially the broad Devon dialect, which I found hard to follow at first.  As expected, given the setting, the text is liberally salted with nautical terms, and these are explained in a comprehensive glossary at the back of the book and a plan of a square-rigged ship at the front.

A helpful Author’s Note at the end describes some of the inspiration behind the novel and outlines some of the underlying history. I was interested to see that one of the most attractive characters, a boisterous boy named Thomas Benson, is based on a historical figure and is planned to feature in further instalments.

Historical fantasy set against a background of smuggling and Jacobite rebellion in eighteenth-century Devon.

 

Bring It Close, by Helen Hollick. Book review

Silverwood Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1-906236-62-5. 385 pages. Advance review copy provided as PDF by publisher.

Bring It Close is the third in the Jesamiah Acorne pirate series, following Sea Witch (reviewed here a few years ago) and Pirate Code. Set in October-November 1718, mainly on the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia in what is now the US, Bring It Close features the notorious historical pirate Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, as a main character. Other secondary characters such as the governors of North Carolina and Virginia, Blackbeard’s crew and the British naval lieutenant Robert Maynard are also historical figures. The two central characters, pirate captain Jesamiah Acorne and white witch Tiola, are fictional.

Captain Jesamiah Acorne has inherited his family’s tobacco plantation, accepted a government amnesty and, in theory, retired from piracy. Bored and still troubled by questions about his father and his family’s past, he has a one-night stand with an old flame, causing his lover, the midwife and white witch Tiola Oldstagh, to quarrel with him and depart to attend a difficult birth. The plantation turns out to be run down to the point of bankruptcy, his half-brother’s widow is disputing the inheritance, the fearsome pirate Blackbeard still wants revenge on Jesamiah for sinking his ship, and Jesamiah’s dead father is trying to contact him from the world of the dead. Jesamiah finds himself arrested for piracy – ironically, this time he is innocent of the charge – and sentenced to hang. If he is to save his life, clear his name and be reunited with his beloved Tiola, he will have to hunt down and kill Blackbeard. But, unknown to Jesamiah, Blackbeard has sold his soul to the Dark Power, the implacable enemy of Tiola and the power she represents, and cannot be killed …

Bring It Close is a fantasy set against the swashbuckling historical background of piracy in the Caribbean and along the east coast of North America. Central to the novel is a supernatural struggle between the powers of Good (the Immortals of Light, the Old Ones of Wisdom), represented by Tiola, and Evil (the Dark Power, the Malevolence), represented by Blackbeard. Attempts by governments to stamp out piracy, and the antagonism between Jesamiah and Blackbeard, are components of this larger conflict. The magic forces are real within the world of the novel, not beliefs held by the characters. Here Blackbeard is, or was, a human who has sold his soul to the devil and is now possessed by the Dark Power. Tiola is a non-human immortal being, one of the Immortals of Light, who has taken human shape. Having fallen in love with a human, Jesamiah Acorne, she can communicate with him by telepathy and has supernatural powers over earth, air, fire and water (but not salt water). However, Immortals of Light are forbidden to kill, and so Tiola cannot use her power to destroy Blackbeard. Indeed, she has to take great care to keep her identity secret from the Dark Power inhabiting Blackbeard’s body, since the Dark Power could harm her and those she cares for. As Blackbeard is protected from death by the Dark Power, and as Tiola is not permitted to use her opposing power to kill, the supernatural battle is at something of an impasse, and is maintained as a conflict throughout the book.

As well as the magical conflict, there is no shortage of earthly action, from tavern brawls to naval battles, blackmail, political double-dealing and a harrowing childbirth scene. Blackbeard is the major historical figure, and according to the author’s note, “many of Blackbeard’s scenes happened – but without Jesamiah and Tiola of course”. The historical Blackbeard came to fame as an adult and not much is known of his early life, giving the author scope to weave him into the lives of the fictional characters and to develop unexpected connections between them.

As a character, Blackbeard in the novel is pure evil, as one might expect from a pirate who has literally sold his soul to the devil. Jesamiah is still much as I remember him from Sea Witch - his liking for drink and women, not to mention his complete lack of tact and his talent for making enemies, get him into trouble on a regular basis, and he has to rely on his resourcefulness, quick wits and ability to lie through his teeth to get himself out of it again. Fans of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow will probably also take a liking to Jesamiah Acorne. Jesamiah’s painful childhood, stormy family history and troubled relationship with his dead father thread through the narrative, as do the dark memories borne by his father’s ghost. Some of this complicated family history seems to have featured in the second book in the series, Pirate Code, but I had no difficulty following the narrative even though I haven’t read Pirate Code. So although Bring It Close is the third in a series, it can be read as a stand-alone.

A useful Author’s Note explains some of the historical events underlying the novel, and sets out the reasoning behind some of the fictional additions. There is also a glossary of nautical terms and a diagram of a ship to help readers unfamiliar with seafaring terminology.

Swashbuckling fantasy set on the coasts of colonial Virginia and North Carolina, featuring the dashing fictional pirate Jesamiah Acorne and the historical pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

I Am the Chosen King, by Helen Hollick. Book review

First published under the title Harold the King, 2000.
Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks 2011, ISBN 978-1-4022-4066-9. 672 pages. Uncorrected advance review copy supplied by publisher.

Set in England and Normandy in 1043-1066, I Am the Chosen King tells the story of Harold Godwinesson and his handfast wife Edyth Swan-neck, and the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. All the main characters are historical figures.

Newly appointed as Earl of East Anglia, Harold, second son of the powerful Earl Godwine of Wessex, has a bright future ahead. When he falls in love with the sweet and beautiful Edyth Swannhaels (Edith Swan-neck) and takes her as his handfast wife, it seems he can look forward to personal happiness as well as power and wealth. But the weak king Edward dislikes Godwine, and Harold’s selfish and ill-disciplined siblings soon give Edward the opportunity to threaten the Godwine family with ruin. And across the Channel in Normandy, Edward’s adolescent kinsman William the Bastard is fast growing into a ruthless and battle-hardened warlord with a ruthless eye on England….

I have long had an interest in Harold Godwinesson, King Harold II, so was very pleased to see him as the central character in this densely detailed novel. Told in third person, I Am the Chosen King switches between England and Normandy, charting the build-up to the Battle of Hastings from both sides. Both Harold and William are fully developed characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Harold is the more likeable of the two, depicted here as kind, loving, considerate and competent, prepared to co-operate with others for the common good. William, emotionally scarred by a violent childhood, is harsh, ambitious, ruthless and not infrequently cruel, as he has had to be to survive and to win control of his duchy. William is used to making his own luck and achieving the impossible, and he has set his sights on a crown. Harold, by contrast, has greatness thrust upon him; he has no especial desire for a crown, but he is determined to do his best for the people of England. So the two men are set on a collision course that will culminate in a hard-fought battle on Senlac Ridge near Hastings in 1066 that will become the most memorable date in English history.

I Am the Chosen King is very long, and the political manoeuvring among the English nobility requires some concentration to follow. The first half of the book is rather slow, and is dominated by Harold’s older siblings and King Edward, all of whom make distinctly unappealing company. Edward takes after his incompetent father Aethelraed Unraed in all the wrong ways. Harold’s sister Edith is selfish and spiteful, his younger brother Tostig is self-righteous and grasping, and his eldest brother Swegn is an overgrown toddler who throws murderous temper tantrums. After a couple of hundred pages I was starting to feel that they all deserved each other, and possibly even deserved William. Harold and his sweet wife Edyth seem to be almost the only two pleasant, well-adjusted people in England, and their blossoming love story and happy family life stand in stark contrast to the rest of the family.

A strength of I Am the Chosen King is that it shows the Norman side of the story as well as the English side. Indeed, in the first half of the book William’s determined struggle to gain control of Normandy and then expand its power and gain independence from France makes a more compelling narrative than the bickering in England. One may not like William very much – as portrayed here, he would be a hard man to like, though his wife Mathilda manages it – but it would be difficult not to admire him.

The pace steps up a gear about halfway through the novel as we reach 1064 and events start to rush towards a confrontation. Harold’s ill-fated trip to Normandy in 1064 brings him into direct contact with William, and the two are already weighing each other up as potential rivals. Helen Hollick’s explanation for the mysterious event of Harold swearing an oath on holy relics is plausible, and explains William’s subsequent fury. From here, events crowd thick and fast. The Battle of Stamford Bridge is over in a few pages, possibly so as not to detract from the grand climax of the Battle of Hastings. The novel manages the remarkable feat of making the outcome seem genuinely in doubt right until the last moment – as of course it was to the people at the time, however well known to the reader.

The author helpfully uses variant spellings to distinguish between people with the same name, e.g. the three Ediths are Edith (Harold’s sister), Edyth (Swan-neck) and Alditha (daughter of Aelfgar of Mercia and Harold’s official wife). Family trees for the Norman and English aristocracies at the start of the book also help to keep track of characters, and the two maps will be useful to readers unfamiliar with the geography. A helpful Author’s Note at the end outlines the underlying history, explains how the author filled in gaps – more of them than you might think; 1066 may be a famous date but that doesn’t mean it was fully documented – and explains what happened to the major characters after the end of the novel.

Detailed recreation of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with Harold Godwinesson and his handfast wife Edyth Swan-neck as the central characters.

The Forever Queen, by Helen Hollick. Book review

First published under the title A Hollow Crown, Arrow, 2005. Shortened and revised edition published by Sourcebooks, 2010, ISBN 978-1-4022-4068-3, 614 pages.

Set in England, Normandy and Denmark in 1002-1042, The Forever Queen tells most of the life story of Emma of Normandy, who was Queen of England through her marriages to Aethelraed and Cnut. All the main characters are historical figures.

As a shy thirteen-year-old married into a foreign kingdom, Emma of Normandy quickly discovers that her new husband Aethelraed is a disaster both as a king and as a husband. While the inept Aethelraed and his avaricious favourite Eadric Streona progressively lose England to the capable Viking Svein Forkbeard and his son Cnut, Emma will have to rely on her own political skill and innate intelligence if she is to survive and to keep the crown that has become her most precious possession.

The Forever Queen covers a period of 40 years, from Emma’s arrival in England as a naïve young bride to the accession of her son Edward (later known as the Confessor) when Emma is a 53-year-old dowager. There was a lot going on in England and its neighbouring kingdoms during those four decades, and The Forever Queen covers most of it. It is thus a very long book – over 600 pages – and densely packed with detail, so some concentration is required to keep track of characters and events.

Emma seems to have had little happiness in her eventful life, and I would say The Forever Queen is the gloomiest of Helen Hollick’s historical novels. Part of this is due to the political situation; The Forever Queen gives the impression that almost everyone in a position of power in England in the first decade or two of the eleventh century was ineffectual or self-seeking or both. This may be entirely justified – Aethelraed Unraed (“Ill-Advised”) and Eadric Streona (“Greedy” or “Grasping”) no doubt did much to earn their derogatory nicknames, and the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is scathing about the incompetence of England’s leadership – but it doesn’t make for a cheerful read, especially for the first 300 pages.

Part is due to Emma’s personal circumstances, particularly during her disastrous marriage to Aethelraed, where her fortitude in enduring an abusive and sometimes sickeningly violent husband is well conveyed. Part is due to Emma’s character as developed in the novel. Coming from an unloved childhood, trapped for years in a miserable marriage, Emma has to be hard to survive. Clinging to her pride and her crown when they were all that gave meaning to her life, Emma develops a cold, calculating ruthlessness that shapes her whole life. She has little affection for her sons by Aethelraed, perhaps not surprising given the nature of her relationship with their father (and young Edward, as portrayed here, would have been a very difficult child to like!). Even when she finds some happiness in her marriage to Cnut, the demands of empire mean that Emma is often left alone for long periods while Cnut is away in one of his far-flung territories. Her son by Cnut, Harthicnut, is brought up largely in Denmark, and Emma sees little of him after early childhood. By the time her sons are grown, Emma seems to regard them in part as a means to retaining her status, and there seems little love lost even between her and Harthicnut, let alone between her and her sons by Aethelraed.

On a more cheerful note, Cnut is attractively drawn, maturing from an overgrown and somewhat blundering adolescent to an effective leader without losing his humanity along the way. Edmund Ironside, son of Aethelraed, takes his rightful place as a capable leader and a promising king. Had he not been mortally wounded in combat, Edmund might have made a worthy successor to his ancestor Alfred the Great, and English history might have followed a very different course. Edmund’s short reign is often treated as little more than a footnote between Aethelraed and Cnut, so it is very pleasing to see him fully developed as a character in his own right in The Forever Queen.

Useful maps at the beginning of the book help to locate the events, and a detailed Author’s Note is very helpful in setting out the historical basis for the novel.

Solid, detailed portrayal of the life and times of the formidable Queen Emma, wife to two kings and mother to two more in early eleventh-century England.

Pendragon’s Banner, by Helen Hollick. Book review

Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks 2009. ISBN 978-1-4022-1889-7. 458 pages.

Pendragon’s Banner is the second in Helen Hollick’s King Arthur trilogy (the first is The Kingmaking, reviewed earlier). I read and enjoyed the trilogy when it was first published, and am pleased to see it back in print. Many thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy and organising the blog tour (details of the other stops on the blog tour at the foot of the post).

Arthur, the illegitimate son of Uthr Pendragon, is now Pendragon and High King of Britain, after the political and military struggles recounted in The Kingmaking. But Arthur is still young, aged only 24, and his position is not secure. Other lords, such as Amlawdd in the south-west and Lot and Hueil in the north of Britain, fancy themselves as High King. The Council of Britain and Arthur’s uncle Ambrosius hanker after a return to the Roman Empire. Winifred, Arthur’s ex-wife, is scheming to get the kingship for the son she had with Arthur, Cerdic. Morgause, Uthr’s cruel mistress who has hated Arthur since his childhood, is plotting his destruction and has laid a curse on Arthur – that if he pursues her, none of his sons will live. Arthur, his beloved wife Gwenhwyfar and their young children are beset with dangers, and defending Arthur’s position as High King demands a heavy price. Will it be too high for their relationship to bear?

As with the previous book in the trilogy, Pendragon’s Banner is free of supernatural powers. No Merlin, no enchanted sword, no magic, no sorcery, no Round Table, no knights in shining armour. This is a good thing in my view, but readers looking for the fantasy aspects of the King Arthur legends will not find them here.

Pendragon’s Banner is a story of human love and conflict, centred on the two main characters, Arthur and his wife Gwenhwyfar. Gwenhwyfar, a princess from Gwynedd (modern north-west Wales), is the descendant of a long line of warriors and something of a warrior herself. She is beautiful, clever, hot-tempered, passionate and as strong-willed as Arthur, leading to frequent quarrels as their opinions and desires clash. Arthur is a military genius, but his skill on the battlefield is not matched in the council chamber. He makes no secret of despising his councillors as a bunch of irrelevant old fools, he antagonises his uncle Ambrosius, he provokes and belittles his loyal but strait-laced cousin Cei, and his jealousy over other men’s attentions to Gwenhwyfar (real or imagined) gets him into more than one fight. The stormy marriage between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar, their private family tragedies, and the intolerable stresses resulting from the conflict between Arthur’s position as High King and his role as husband and father, form the core of the narrative.

The novel spans a period of about seven years, giving ample opportunity for a lot of warfare and political scheming as well as the personal relationships. It also incorporates numerous legends attached to the King Arthur story, such as the tale of Ider fighting a giant on Brent Knoll near Glastonbury and a quarrel between Arthur and Gwenhwyfar at the Queen’s Crags on Hadrian’s Wall. Perhaps as a result of including so many legends, the book is a lengthy read and I found the plot rather sprawling. Arthur has to face not one but two rebellions in the north, Morgause and Winifred are constantly hatching schemes, Arthur and Gwenhwyfar quarrel and make up, become estranged and reconciled and quarrel again. Some plot threads, such as Arthur’s alliance with the Saxon leader Winta, are introduced in detail and then disappear, perhaps because this is the middle part of a trilogy and they may be setting up for something in the third book.

Detailed descriptions of landscape and weather, among other aspects, make for a leisurely pace. This is accentuated by the elaborate prose style (e.g. “had the wanting of” instead of “wanted”), which sets a consciously archaic tone and sometimes requires more than one reading to disentangle the meaning. Keeping track of everything takes concentration, and readers may like to take note that typos in some of the dates in the chapter headings can be confusing (e.g. Chapter 43 in Part 1 is headed “April 456”, but is a continuation of the battle in the previous few chapters headed “December 462”). Although the backstory from Book One is explained where necessary, the trilogy works best if read back to back as a single long story.

A helpful Author’s Note explains some of the background, and a family tree at the front of the book helps in keeping track of the family relationships between the large cast of characters. There’s also a very useful list of place names with their modern equivalents (but note that Wroxeter and Winteringham have been mistakenly reversed in the list), and a list of questions for reading groups to consider.

Book Two of a trilogy retelling the King Arthur legends without fantasy trappings.

The other stops on the Pendragon’s Banner blog tour are as follows:

The Tome Travellers Weblog (10/12)
A Reader’s Respite (10/12)
Enchanted by Josephine (10/14)
Fumbling with Fiction (10/14)
Found Not Lost (10/15)
Nan Hawthorne’s Booking the Middle Ages(10/15)
Jenny Loves to Read(10/16)
The Review From Here(10/17)
The Courtier’s Book(10/18)
Chick Loves Lit(10/19)
Love Romance Passion (10/20)
He Followed Me Home… Can I Keep Him?(10/20)
The Impasse Strikes Back (10/21)
S. Krishna’s Books (10/22)
Books Like Breathing (10/23)
Passages to the Past(10/24)
Virginie Says(10/25)
Readaholic(10/25)
Reading with Monie (10/26)
Rundpinne(10/26)
Books & Needlepoint(10/27)
Capricious Reader (10/27)
Books are my Only Friends (10/27)
A Sea of Books (10/28)
Bloody Bad (10/28)
Revenge of the Book Nerds! (10/28)
Booksie’s Blog (10/28)
Devourer of Books (10/29)
Peeking Between the Pages (10/29)
Starting Fresh (10/29)
Historical Tapestry (10/30)
Medieval Bookworm (10/30)
Book Soulmates (10/30)
Susan’s Art & Words (10/30)
Steven Till(10/31)
Café of Dreams (10/31)

The Kingmaking, by Helen Hollick. Book review

First published 1994. Edition reviewed: Sourcebooks, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4022-1888-0. 563 pages.

I read and enjoyed The Kingmaking when it was first published, and am pleased to see it back in print. It is the first in the Pendragon’s Banner trilogy, a retelling of the King Arthur story from Arthur’s boyhood to his death. Arthur and his wife Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere is the later medieval spelling of the same name) are the central characters. The Kingmaking covers the period 450–457 AD, and Arthur is aged 15 at the beginning of the novel. Many of the characters, such as Arthur, Gwenhwyfar, Uthr, Ygrainne, Morgause, Cei and Bedwyr, are familiar from Arthurian legend. Others, such as Hengest, Vortigern and his wife Rowena, Ambrosius and Cunedda are known from historical sources although not always associated with Arthur.

Uthr Pendragon, exiled from Britain many years earlier after being defeated in battle by Vortigern, returns to try to reclaim his throne with the help of his old friend and ally, Cunedda of Gwynedd. Cunedda’s feisty daughter Gwenhwyfar takes an immediate dislike to Uthr’s companion, a boy of unknown parentage called Arthur, until a shared dislike of Uthr’s evil mistress Morgause brings the two together. When Uthr’s bid for power ends in his death and Arthur’s true parentage is revealed, it seems that the fates of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar will be woven together. But Vortigern and his malicious daughter Winifred have other ideas, and soon Arthur and Gwenwhyfar find themselves entangled in a web of politics, war and ambition that threatens to divide them for ever.

The first thing to say about The Kingmaking is that it is a story of human love, hatred, loyalty, betrayal, war and politics without any of the supernatural elements that have come to be associated with the Arthur legends. There is no Merlin, no magic and no enchanted sword in a stone. This is no loss in my view, quite the reverse, and some of the author’s suggestions for incidents that could have led to the supernatural parts of the legend are highly ingenious and great fun to spot. But readers who like magic and enchantments should look elsewhere.

The Kingmaking places Arthur in the middle of the fifth century as a contemporary of Vortigern and predecessor of Ambrosius Aurelianus, whereas it is more usual to place Arthur after Ambrosius. Given that there isn’t an uncontested date in the two centuries of British history between the Rescript of Honorius in 410 AD and the arrival of St Augustine in 597 AD, the dates for Arthur’s life are fair game for the novelist’s imagination.

What I found most memorable about The Kingmaking was the characterisation of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. Both are fully rounded individuals with a mix of good and bad qualities, and both do admirable and not-so-admirable things. Arthur is dynamic, enthusiastic and brave, but also ruthless, ambitious, not above lying and cheating to gain his ends, and often fails to control his appetites for drink and women, with consequences that range from awkward to disastrous. Gwenhwyfar is bold and passionate, as brave as Arthur, but wilful and hasty to rush to judgment. Both are proud, hot-tempered and inclined to speak before thinking, leading them to inflict pain on each other and those around them. Their relationship is an emotional rollercoaster even without the obstacles thrown in their way by the political manoeuvrings. Life for them and for those around them, must be exhausting and exciting in about equal measure. Gwenhwyfar is a little too much of the warrior heroine for my liking, and as far as I know not one legend even hints at Gwenhwyfar as a warrior. Though as so little is known of the period, who’s to say it’s impossible?

Of the secondary characters, I found the men more varied and convincing than the women. Gwenhwyfar’s brothers include the cheerful Etern, the quietly competent Enniaun, and the henpecked Osmail, Cei is upright and honest, and the pedantic Emrys (Ambrosius Aurelianus) has potential though he hardly appears in The Kingmaking. Even Vortigern and Hengest are rational men who deal in realpolitik, however unpleasant. In contrast, Morgause is pure evil and Winifred (Vortigern’s fictional daughter) is pure spite, and I found both somewhat tedious. I had the impression of a sharp fault line between the good guys (Arthur, Gwenhwyfar and their friends and allies) and the bad guys. Vortigern, Hengest, Rowena, Winifred, Melwas and Morgause, all Arthur’s enemies, are deceitful, cruel, vindictive, cunning, spiteful and/or selfish. Hengest is brave, but apart from that they hardly have a redeeming feature between them.

One notable feature is that the horses are almost secondary characters in their own right. I have the impression that the author knows a lot about horses and their ways, which adds an extra dimension to a novel in which cavalry warfare plays such a large part.

The complex politics of a power struggle in a dying empire are convincingly portrayed. Vortigern and Uthr are rivals for the position of supreme ruler of Britain; Vortigern’s sons and Arthur are similar rivals; Hengest and his followers are Vortigern’s paid allies, but have an eye to their own advantage; Cunedda is an independent power in Gwynedd, inclined to side with Uthr and then Arthur against Vortigern but no man’s lapdog; Rowena, Winifred and Gwenhwyfar are all rivals for the position of Queen to the current king and mother of the next one. Add in local kings and chieftains, and there are enough plot threads to weave a tangled tale. The narrative skilfully cuts back and forth between the threads so that none of them is left for too long, but you do have to pay attention. The Kingmaking is a long book (550+ pages) and a complicated one; it’s not a quick read.

A delightful feature is the ingenious take on the legend of the sword in the stone (no, I’m not going to tell you what it is). So much so that I thought it a great shame that it only appeared at the end. The marvellous sword is such a central component of the legend that I’d have liked to see it play an integral role in the plot from much earlier on.

A down-to-earth retelling of the King Arthur story as that of a ruthless fifth-century soldier and his feisty queen.


Q&A with Helen Hollick
As part of the blog tour to launch this new edition of The Kingmaking, author Helen Hollick kindly answered a few questions for me. Here they are:

Q. In The Kingmaking, you have Arthur coming to the kingship in around 456 AD and personally defeating Hengest. This is rather earlier than usual, as Arthur is more usually placed some time after Vortigern and Hengest. Why did you choose to make him their contemporary?

A. This time frame was more logical – and it was not my own idea. The Arthurian historian Geoffrey Ashe suggested it, and his theory was most convincing. There is no evidence for any of these dates – indeed, there is no evidence that Arthur even existed – but by looking closely at the early Welsh legends and the few pieces of contemporary writing that we do have, placing Arthur these few years earlier seemed, to my mind, to fit the missing piece of the jigsaw into the puzzle.

Q. In your story, Arthur's wife Gwenhwyfar is the daughter of Cunedda, the founder of Gwynedd in modern north-west Wales . Tell me more about what led you to place Gwenhwyfar there.

A. Cunedda was a real person. He and his family were forcibly moved from Traprain Law (near Edinburgh , Scotland ) to North Wales possibly around 430 – 450 ish.. We do not know why, or who moved him. I thought it was a good story to use, and since reading Sharon Kay Penman’s wonderful novels about Gwynedd (especially Here Be Dragons) I was determined to combine the two.

Then, while researching some genealogies (admitted not necessarily reliable) to my delight I discovered he may have had a daughter called Gwyn.

Well, that was it! My ideas were set!

Q. What first drew you to want to retell Arthur and Gwenhwyfar's story?

A. While working in a local public library I re-discovered Rosemary Sutcliff’s superb teenage novels set in Roman Britain – Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Mark of the Horse Lord etc, and then Mary Stewart’s Hollow Hills Trilogy, and there I discovered an Arthur who was very different to the one of the Medieval Tales.
I had never liked the ‘traditional’ Arthurian stories as I could not accept that King Arthur was so bad a king to abandon his kingdom and his wife and go in search of the Grail. Surely he would have foreseen that Lancelot and Guinevere would have an affair? I also disliked Lancelot and all those too-good-to-be-true knights. None of it seemed real history.

Mary Stewart’s novels had an author’s note which stated that if Arthur had existed he would have been a Romano British war lord. I liked that idea very much and read all I could about the ‘real’, more interesting Arthur. But then the existing novels began to irritate me. Knights in armour, chivalry, turreted castles… this was not right for the Dark Ages. It was fine as a fairy tale but not as an historical novel.
These stories were not how I saw things. I was so frustrated with one portrayal of Gwenhwyfar that I threw the book across the room!

I had had enough. The only way to relieve my frustration was to write my own story. There would be no knights, grails, round tables. No myth, no magic. No Lancelot, no Merlin.

Instead, I explored the early Welsh legends of Arthur and Gwenhwyfar. These legends turned out to be far more exciting and emotional than the Medieval stories. Arthur was more plausible. Arthur was suddenly real.

It took me ten years to write what eventually became The Kingmaking. It was first published in the UK almost 15 years ago – and since then the trend has very much fallen towards portraying Arthur in his correct time period – the Dark Ages, between the going of the Romans and the coming of the Anglo Saxons.

Thank you, Helen!

Helen is participating in a Blog Tour in honour of the publication of The Kingmaking. Here are the stops:

http://harrietdevine.typepad.com/harriet_devines_blog/2009/02/the-kingmaking.html 2/20

http://lazyhabits.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-kingmaking/ 2/21 and interview 2/27

http://carpelibrisreviews.com/the-kingmaking-by-helen-hollick-book-tour-giveaway/ 2/23

http://www.historicalnovels.info/Kingmaking.html 2/23
http://www.historicalnovels.info/historical-novels-blog.html

http://www.bibliophilemusings.com/2009/02/review-interview-kingmaking-by-helen.html 2/23

http://lilly-readingextravaganza.blogspot.com/2009/02/kingmaking-by-helen-hollick.html 2/23 and guest blog 2/25

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=484
http://chikune.com/blog/?p=488 2/24

http://booksaremyonlyfriends.blogspot.com/ 2/25

http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/ 2/26 and guest blog 2/27

http://webereading.blogspot.com/ 2/26

http://www.caramellunacy.blogspot.com 2/26

http://bookthoughtsbylisa.blogspot.com/ 3/1

http://www.skrishnasbooks.com/ 3/1

http://jennifersrandommusings.wordpress.com/ 3/1

http://rhireading.blogspot.com/ 3/1

http://passagestothepast.blogspot.com/ 3/2

http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/ 3/2

http://steventill.com/ 3/2

http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com / 3/2 and interview 3/3

http://www.carlanayland.blogspot.com/ 3/3

http://readersrespite.blogspot.com/ 3/3 and interview on 3/5

http://libraryqueue.blogspot.com/ 3/4

http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/ 3/4

http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/ 3/5

http://samsbookblog.blogspot.com 3/5

http://goodbooksbrightside.blogspot.com/ 3/5