Word Wenches

An Interview with Christina Courtenay!

Nicola here, and today it is my very great pleasure to be interviewing the Word Wenches' very own Christina Courtenay about her new book Whispers of the Runes which is published tomorrow in the UK in print, e-book and audio, and in North America in ebook and audio with the print edition to follow in September.

Christina, welcome to the Word Wenches as a guest rather than a contributor today! It's very exciting to be chatting to you about Whispers of the Runes, which is book 3 in your highly-acclaimed and hugely successful Viking Runes series but also works brilliantly as a stand alone book. It's difficult to choose favourites from among the books in this series because they have all been wonderful but this may be the one I enjoyed the most!

Tell us more about this particular story and how it fits into the series.

Christina: This book features the best friend of the heroine from book 2, and also the middle brother of the hero of that story.

When jewellery designer Sara is propelled back to the ninth century, after cutting herself on a Viking knife she uncovers at an archaeological dig, she is quick to accept what has happened to her because this is not the first she’s heard of time travel. Although acutely aware of the danger she faces when she loses the knife – and with it her way to return to her own time – this is also the opportunity of a lifetime. What better way to add authenticity to the Viking and Anglo-Saxon motifs used in her designs than to study the real thing?

As luck has it, the first person Sara encounters is Rurik Eskilsson, a Viking and fellow silversmith who is also no stranger to the concept of time travel. Agreeing that Sara can accompany him to Jorvik, they embark on a journey even more perilous than one through time. But Fate has brought these two kindred spirits together across the ages for a reason and it takes them a while to figure out what that is …

Your research is amazing, so much depth and fascinating detail that is dropped into the story lightly but enriches it so much. I loved the way that you incorporated such wonderful silversmithing and jewellery design details into the story and the way that their skill and shared interest in jewellery design was such a bond between Rurik and Sara. Please tell us more about that element of the book.

Christina: Thank you! The hero, Rurik, had already appeared in the previous book, and as he was a silversmith, I thought it would be fun for the heroine Sara to be a jewellery maker/designer as well, although obviously she’s used to 21^st century techniques. It gave them something in common, but was also the perfect opportunity for conflict between them as they’ll go about things differently and won’t always agree on the best way. I decided to have her specialise in Viking and Anglo-Saxon designs so that actually ending up in the 9^th century and staying there would be an opportunity she can’t resist. I love jewellery myself and doing research on silversmithing was definitely no hardship! I was supposed to have done a one-day course in order to try it out, but sadly that was cancelled because of Covid. Luckily, the lady running it was able to answer my questions via email instead (and I hope to do the course at a later date). And I might have bought one or two items as well in the name of research …

There were actually many different styles of Viking jewellery, depending on which era they are from. I prefer the so called Urnes
style myself, although that belongs to a later period so unfortunately I couldn’t use that for my characters.

I would agree that buying a few items for yourself is essential research! Your depth of knowledge of the era is one of the reasons your books always create such a vivid historical world. How do you research the Viking background and do you have any favourite discoveries from your research?

Christina: It’s been a long process of collecting all the information I could possibly find about the Vikings – their history, culture, customs, clothing, food, housing etc. I’ve read countless books, watched TV programmes and YouTube videos, spoken to experts and read scientific articles, and I have visited as many museums as I could. I’ve travelled in Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and most recently I’ve been to Iceland as well. There are so many wonderful museums telling the story of the Vikings and highlighting various aspects of their society and I’ve enjoyed them all.

I think my favourite discovery has to do with the Viking ships though – I get terribly seasick but when I took a trip round Roskilde harbour in a reconstructed longship, I found out that it was a very smooth ride and I was absolutely fine. In Iceland, there is another museum dedicated to a reconstructed longship and the information there explained how they were built so cunningly that they could easily cut through enormous waves without becoming swamped. I am in complete awe at their boat-building skills!

Your books shine a light on the role of women in Viking society. Could you tell us some more about this fascinating subject?

Christina: Viking women were valued for being intelligent and hardworking. They were equal partners in running a farm and had charge of all things domestic. If the husband had to go away for any length of time, the wife was trusted to manage everything in his absence. He didn’t leave another man in charge in his stead because that wasn’t necessary.

Most of them expected to marry – not for romantic reasons, but purely practical. Marriage gave a woman social status and economic security, and family connections and kinship on both sides were extremely important in Viking society. If, by any chance, a marriage didn’t work out, the woman could divorce her husband so they had rights that the ladies of other countries had to wait nearly a millennium to gain!

Rurik, the hero of Whispers of the Runes, is no stranger to the concept of time travel and this was a refreshing change in this genre. What do you enjoy about writing timeslip and time travel books?

Christina: With timeslip (or dual time) books, I love the fact that you get two love stories for the price of one. I also enjoy the challenge of trying to connect them and keep the reader invested in both timelines – not always easy! Time travel stories are a bit different and I like that I can have a lot of fun with the characters as they try to adapt to each others’ centuries and ideas (sometimes unwillingly). Throwing a person into a situation where they are completely out of their depth really shows you their true character. There can be clashes on all sorts of subjects, as well as the discovery of shared beliefs and values, which might surprise them.

Would you be open to the idea of travelling in time yourself? If so, where would you go and what would you want to do?

Christina: I would only want to do this if I had a guaranteed way back and it was for a very limited time period. Also, I would need to know exactly what year and where I was going to. No point ending up in Salem, Massachusetts during the witch trials for example! I think that if it actually happened for real, it would be quite terrifying so I’m not sure I’d like to go alone either. And I’d want to make sure I brought enough gold or silver to buy myself out of any sticky situations – being poor in the past was definitely not a good thing.

That's very well thought through - you've obviously considered it thoroughly! Perhaps some of us could form a time travelling consortium and make the trips together! or if not there is always the books...

Can you give us a few hints about the next book in the series?

Christina: Yes, it’s called TEMPTED BY THE RUNES and will be out in December of this year. It’s the story of Maddie, the younger sister of Linnea (heroine of Book 2) and Geir, younger brother of Rurik and the hero of Book 2, Hrafn. When Maddie happens to find a small knife with runes on the handle, she knows exactly what it represents – the chance for her to time travel and have her own adventures in the past. Unfortunately for her, the brief visit turns into a somewhat longer one, and when she meets Geir he becomes determined to persuade her to stay for good ...

Thank you so much for telling us more about Whispers of the Runes, Christina, and very best wishes for publication day tomorrow! You can find out more about Christina's book on her website here. To buy a copy of Whispers of The Runes, click here!

Feel free to ask Christina anything about Whispers of the Runes, her books, writing, research and of course those fascinating Vikings!

Christina's question for you is this: "Are you a jewellery fan? What sort of items are your favourites?" One lucky commenter between now and midnight Thursday will win a signed copy of Whispers of the Runes!

Rita Boucher

The Return of Rita Boucher!

by Mary Jo

Today I'm interviewing Regency writer Rita Boucher.  Rita and I are old friends, fellow Baltimorans as well as being veterans of the golden age of traditional Regencies.  Her books were always charming and original, so I was delighted when she told me she was revising and reissuing her Regencies. (Something I'd advocated for over the years!)

So welcome to the Word Wenches, Rita!  What was it like to revisit and revise your earlier stories? 

RB: Thanks so much for asking me to be here and for urging me to get back to writing. 

It was somewhat scary at first, I admit. I was afraid that the work would not stand up to the test of time, but once I pulled them off my shelf, I was both relieved and happy to find that my books were still fun to read. As I went through the revisions, there were a few tweaks that made them even better, things that I would have loved to do initially but couldn’t, since the publishing process back then was the equivalent of written in stone.

 

Serendipity or Help from the Gods?

Christina here. As writers, we do a lot of background research for our books and personally I like to go and look at the settings for my stories if at all possible. Having decided that my hero and heroine were going to end up in the north-east of England (Northumbria and Mercia as it was called in the 9th century), I really wanted to visit those places for myself to see first-hand what it was like. I persuaded my poor long-suffering husband to come with me, and as we had two very elderly dogs they came along for the ride too. And what a ride it turned out to be!

A 775 English miles roundtrip in two days – it was what I would definitely call an epic journey. And all done in torrential rain, which is very tiring for the driver (mostly my husband). But somehow it all worked out very well and although this might sound very fanciful, I actually felt as though the Norse gods were with me, helping me to find exactly what I needed. Because the weirdest thing happened – although it was raining the entire two days – and I’m talking deluge here, not just a shower or two – each time we stopped at a site I wanted to see and photograph, the rain stopped for just long enough to give me a chance to do that. Coincidence? I started to doubt it. I mean, what are the chances?

Tales of Faerie

 

Walter Crane, Snow White

 

“The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found

Jesse Wilcox Smith illustration

there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories" 

Susan here, thinking about fairy tales – they fill my bookshelves and always have, from tattered, beloved childhood copies to antique fairy tale books to anthologies and academic studies of fairy tale themes. I still read them. I still love them.  

“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” --Mae West

Among my favorites are an old copy of the complete tales of The Brothers Grimm, and other collections of Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, and Andrew Lang—The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, the Green Fairy Book (and The Yellow, Pink, Grey, Violet, Crimson, Scarlet, Orange, Olive and Lilac Books). 

Illustrations by Sheilah Beckett

My favorite as a child was probably the Little Golden Book of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, so beautifully illustrated by Sheilah Beckett. When I was very little, I sometimes slept with my fairy tale books, absorbing the stories night and day. In college, I loved reading studies of fairy tales—Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, Marina Warner’s fabulous From the Beast to the Blonde, the work of Jack Zipes, and more.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” --Albert Einstein

Fairy tales go back thousands of years, along with myths and legends, as far back as caves and bright fires and the urge to explain why the stars sparkle, the wind blows, why thunderclouds look like dragons, and that a sunbeam or a rainbow may be a magical being in disguise. Stories explore life and give us choices and tools to address and comprehend what we encounter in the realm of reality.

I learned about life, love, good and evil, morals, integrity, and absorbed the

page from a Walter Crane edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

elements of classic storytelling from reading fairy tales. I was equally enchanted by the illustrations, turning pages just to study the pictures, copying them in crayons, constantly learning (when I was three, I drew princesses in pink dresses all over the family Bible—in my defense, the endpapers were blank, and I had crayons!). The story and life elements were subliminal, but took hold. I was just loving the stories, the characters, the brave girls and boys, the triumph over obstacles on the road to a happier life. All useful lessons, years later.

Arthur Rackham, Woman in the Wind

 

 

"In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected." --Charles Dickens

It’s well known now that fairy tales, myths, and legends are essential for building, expanding and strengthening a child’s understanding of right and wrong, cruel and kind, hope and fear and how to overcome. They demonstrate basic tools of humanity, compassion, loyalty, ingenuity, and their opposite qualities too. Good doesn’t always win, but the tales provide a matrix for understanding archetypes, the quest and the journey, the crucial importance of choice. They give us a glimpse of a mysterious world beyond our own, a world of fairies, elves, witches, dragons, dark ones and light ones. Child or adult, we can learn or be reminded that there are forces in life we can’t always control or explain, but we can call up strength and integrity. And they show us that no matter the outcome, it’s important to do the best thing for ourselves and for others.

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous 'turn' (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially 'escapist,' nor 'fugitive.' In its fairy-tale--or otherworld--setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.”  --J.R.R. Tolkein

AskA Wench: does writing get easier?

Anne here, and this month the Ask-a-Wench question is one often asked. It started off as "After so many books, does the writing get easier?" To which every single wench emphatically answered "No."  Not much of a blog there.

So we changed it to: "After so many books, does the writing get easier or harder? What is the hardest part of creating a story?" which gave us a little more to talk about.

Pat says:  Without even knowing how the other wenches respond to the first part of this question, I can almost hear them all shouting: “Heck, no!” in probably ruder terms. With each book, we learn a little more and have to think a little harder. And then, if we wish to stay creative and original as the number of published books piles up, we have to stretch our imaginations further and further to give readers new stories.

For me, the hardest part is, and always has been, writing a plot. Characters are easy. They populate my head. They kick around, chattering, demanding this scene or that—scenes that do not necessarily work with my perceived plot or any plot at all. Occasionally, this works and new ideas take off, but only in straight romance. If I mean to include a mystery. . . My characters aren’t heavily into logical clues and need to be taken by the hand—or the throat—and forced into line. And then it’s up to me to keep timelines and clues and characters straight so the plot follows without readers stopping and saying “Hey, what? Didn’t they just do that in the last chapter?” With my memory, that’s a real challenge!

Send For The Doctor

Anne here, and today I'm diving down another research rabbit-hole — medical treatments in Regency-era England. (And be warned, this blog is a little bit gruesome.)

Whenever I have a character who is injured or falls sick in one of my novels, I research it. I choose the disease or injury that the plot requires and consult helpful friends — I have two doctors, several nurses and a very knowledgable paramedic in my circle, and they're all very good about having their brains picked.

Of course they know how the injury or disease will unfold today, but I'm writing about a time when there were no antibiotics, and even germ theory was barely born. Most doctors in the Regency era simply didn't believe in such nonsense as germs or bacteria. Surgery was performed with no regard for cleanliness, doctors wore filthy coats—often coming directly from the autopsy room to the operating room—with pride.

So researching the treatments that were common in my historical era is fascinating—and horrifying. To my modern eye they read like a torture manual.

For instance if a character caught the 'flu or pneumonia, measles, smallpox, and most kinds of fevers, the common medical practice was to first to bleed them, cutting into the skin (no anaesthetic back then) and draining the blood into a bowl — a pint (half a litre) or more was not uncommon. This was mostly performed by barber-surgeons, not by physicians. Scarification was another method — using a spring-loaded instrument to produce a series of small cuts.

The purpose of this was to "balance the humors". Disease was believed to result from an imbalance in the natural humors, or fluids, of the body—they being blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm — a theory dating back to ancient Greek medicine.

Away to the Highlands

Nicola here. Last week I was lucky enough to be on holiday in the Scottish Highlands, staying in a historic cottage above the town of Braemar. There aren’t many things that I have in common with the Queen, but for a few days we were within 20 miles of each other as Braemar is just down the road from Balmoral Castle! Our cottage however, whilst very comfortable indeed, was a lot smaller than the royal residence although just as interesting historically. Braemar too is an absolutely fascinating little town with a hugely interesting history and I had the treat of taking both an exclusive tour of the town and of the castle with two different but equally knowledgeable guides, and I thought I would share some historical snippets here.

Turning Over a New Leaf . . .

Andrea here. As summer begins to unfurl here where I live in New England, the profusion of colors and textures—both wild and cultivated—coming to life have me thinking about gardens. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am NOT a gardener. Other than the annual rite of planting impatiens in the big urns on my entrance steps and herbs on my deck, I don’t have the patience to dig and weed, and work toward a vision that may take years to come to fruition. But I truly appreciate the artistry, and am grateful to those who have a passion for cultivating the earth.

My recent walks reminded me of a fascinating story in botanical history. One of the many books (too many—I really need more bookshelves1) stacked on the overflow table of my TBR and Keeper piles is The Brother Gardeners, by Andrea Wulf. It’s wonderful history revolving around a small group of men who started the movement of trading seeds and specimen plantings between America and Britain, which changed the face of the English landscape.

At the heart of the story is Peter Collinson, who was born into a prosperous English mercantile Quaker family. His father was a cloth merchant, dealing in high quality fabric both in Britain and its American colonies. Collinson, who couldn’t attend university in England because of his religion, took over the family business. But his real passion was botany.

Cruising the Chesapeake part 2

Cruising the Chesapeake 2

by Mary Jo

I chronicled the first part of our April Chesapeake Bay Revolutionary War themed here.  Now for the second exciting installment!

Washington, DC:

After leaving Yorktown, Virginia, the site of the British surrender to the new United States in the Revolutionary war, we headed north. Next stop: Washington, DC.!

As usual, there were several excursions available to passengers.  The Mayhem Consultant and I are fond of taking coach tour overviews because they give a broader sense of the area and show both highlights and lesser lights. Also, the guides are generally specialists in local history and have many interesting things to say. 

Our Washington coach tour was of this type, and because it was in DC, there were a number of monuments and memorials.  We saw a nice assortment of these, but the one that impressed me the most was the Marine War Memorial which is adjacent to the Arlington National Military Cemetery.

 

Chaises Longues

Christina here, and today I’m waxing lyrical about a piece of furniture - the chaise longue, a perfect place for reading!

I can’t remember when I first became aware of the existence of chaises longues, but it must have been when I was quite young. At that time, I didn’t even know it was a French expression as I hadn’t begun to study that language. But because Sweden had appointed a Frenchman as their king in the early 19^th century (long story, but they invited one of Napoleon’s generals to become king and he accepted) there are a lot of words in Swedish that are borrowed from French. This was one of them and I knew it under the weird Swedish spelling – schäslong.

What I clearly do remember is that from the moment I first saw one, I wanted to own one, desperately!