A shamefaced return, and interview with Victoria Lamb

Hello, and a very belated New Year! As you may have guessed, I did that extremely annoying that bloggers sometimes do and stopped posting due to burnout. Basically, I wasn't completely happy with my job, and writing after a long commute became a little like homework.

Things have changed a little since then though. Since the date of my last post (October), I have left my old job, started a new one, and moved to a completely new area. I'm now working as an editor for the finance section of a graduate careers advice website, and do a lot more writing. They say that writing as much as possible is like turning over soil and making the imagination more ripe - this can only be a good thing, I guess! I've still been reading a lot of YA, of course, so hopefully I will have some new reviews up for you soon. I won't be posting as often in case I overdo it again - it's all about the love, not views, haha!

Back while I was still blogging regularly, I sent an email to Victoria Lamb asking her to answer some questions. I actually thought I'd already written about her two current books, Witchstruck and Witchfall, but I must have been waiting until the interview was ready to publish, oops! I'll re-read them and have them up ASAP, but rest assured I loved them, and they're well worth a read, especially if you love supernatural/YA/history stories with a bit of romance mixed in!

Having captured much of the public’s imagination, the lives of most people with even a simple connection to the Tudor court are fairly well documented. Who has been the most intriguing person for you, as a writer, to develop a character from? 

Probably Elizabeth, who is known as the 'Lady Elizabeth' in these books, as her title of Royal Highness was stripped from her as a young child following her mother's execution. To have been born into the ruling family and yet be treated as an outcast, a second-class royal, even considered illegitimate because of arguments over how Henry VIII had married her mother while his first wife was still alive - the Pope, of course, famously refused to grant him a divorce, so Henry founded his own Church of England and granted it to himself! All of that must have made Elizabeth a very complex and difficult person to know. So trying to depict her character truthfully in these novels, and not hide negative points about her (as queen, Elizabeth was known for pinching and slapping her ladies-in-waiting when they displeased her, and even locking them up in the Tower of London!) was both fun and problematic. I can understand why she had a difficult temperament, but many readers have found my portrayal of her less than sympathetic. I rather like the fact that they've been challenged by it, as films tend to depict Elizabeth as very regal and fair-minded, but what we actually know from history paints a less complimentary picture of the real Elizabeth.

It seemed to me, having gone over the subject of the witch trials briefly at university, that the character of Marcus Dent was based on Matthew Hopkins, the real life Witchfinder General. I love how you humanised his obsession for catching witches (rather than just simply being a psycho!). When writing the character of a person such as Dent, does it all come from your imagination, or do you base certain traits on the research you’ve done on the historical figure they’re based on? 

Nearly everything, where it's not based on historical fact, comes from my imagination. I didn't actually start researching Hopkins and his kind until after I had written most of Witchstruck. In fact, the original plan behind Dent's character was far more complex than it came out, following editorial changes, and I regret that. I can't spill the beans too much, but Dent was almost a rival for Meg's affections in the early drafts of Witchstruck, and that slightly dangerous relationship was glossed over as revisions happened and the book was shortened. If I had to do it again, I would dig my heels in and fight to keep my original plan. So Marcus is not as complex a character as I originally envisaged him to be, but I hope some of what happens in book three will counteract that.

Is Meg Lytton completely fictitious, or is she based on one of Elizabeth’s servants? 

Completely fictitious!

From the cover of the books, Meg looks gorgeous, obviously. How much influence do you have over your books’ front covers, and if so, what do you think is the most important thing about it? 

Almost no influence at all. And much of that is about marketing and getting the readership right, so to interfere might be dangerous. Probably if I hated something I would make a fuss and try to get it changed, but in fact, I am not a designer and covers don't matter much to me as a reader, so I stick to what I'm good at - the writing - and leave art work and marketing to the experts.

If you weren’t writing about the Tudor/Jacobean periods, what do you think your books would be based on? Is there another era you’re fascinated by, or would you be writing something like sci-fi? 

My first novels were contemporary, and I would like to return to that - though probably under another name! I do enjoy fantasy fiction, and love to watch sci-fi films and television shows, so I haven't ruled out writing that. My first rough attempts at novel-writing as a teen were all fantasy.

Astrologer John Dee features in the stories as someone who can tell the future from the stars. If you went back in time and he offered to read your stars, what would you want to know about? 

As a double Scorpio, 'how can I improve myself?' would be my first question. Though of course I have some training myself as an astrologer - I hold a Certificate from the Faculty of Astrological Studies in London - and often study my own transits to get a fix on general trends in my life. Astrology is enormously complex though. Many people don't realise that and think there are absolute answers to everything. And in Dee's time many astrologers thought there were absolute answers; it was more like a science then, and taken very seriously by those in power. But reading a horoscope is more like planning a novel: you may know roughly what's ahead, but can't pinpoint exactly how things will happen or how your characters will react to changing circumstances. So astrology today is about working to your strengths and improving your weaknesses, not about whether you'll marry or have kids or whatever.

If you had a ‘voice of power’ like Meg’s, who would you use it on and what would you want from them? 

My kids, probably. "Tidy your room!" would be my first command. And occasionally, "Please be quiet!", which seems to have limited success in my normal voice. Or "Fetch me snacks!". That would be a good one.

I read on this blog post that you love translating Latin for fun. What’s the best phrase you’ve come across (and its meaning)? 

'In saecula saeculorum' is a satisfying one to say, it just sounds fabulous on the tongue. It basically means 'forever and ever' and is religious - it's often tagged on the end of prayers, for instance - and I'm not at all religious, despite having a would-be priest for a hero in my books. But the neat repetition with variation of this phrase is wonderful. It's like music. I do love Latin, yes.

So... 5 children. Phew, I’m tired just thinking about it! What do their ages range between, and do you have any favourite stories you loved to read to them? 

My eldest is 26, and has a three year old son, so yes, I'm a grandma now. And my youngest is just nine years old and still at primary school. In between I have twin boys of 11, and another daughter of nearly 23. I also have a step-daughter who's in her late teens. So that's 6 kids really. And a bit, LOL. I don't read to them now, but when they were younger I read poetry to them mostly. My mother taught me nursery rhymes and poems as a young child, and that really helped me develop an ear for language. My husband, who is rather more patient, used to read to them from Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series at bedtime. We all love fantasy and sci-fi fiction in this house.

As you told me on Twitter, Witchrise, the next Tudor Witch book, is out in mid-2014. Can you tell us what to expect? Personally, I’m trying to think of a way around Alejandro’s priestly vow of celibacy, haha!

Ah, but Alejandro's order of priests allows him to marry! (This is actually true, it's a medieval order of priests that still exists today.) As to the rest of the story, Marcus Dent of course is still at large and there's a major showdown beween him and Meg. The final battle, perhaps. But things may not turn out precisely the way a reader might expect ...

Thanks for the interview, Victoria! Sorry it's so late...! Witchrise will be released on 31st July.