Someone who knows what he wants, his godfather had called him. But what good did that do, he wondered bleakly, when you had no hope of ever getting it? He mounted the stairs, doing his best to block out the sounds of laughter and song behind him. And her voice most of all.
Everyone in the family knew, to some extent, how much Reg coveted the dukedom and Hal’s place as firstborn.
No one knew—no one would ever know, if Gervase had anything to say about it—how much he coveted Hal’s fiancée.
The Story Behind The Story
The Advent of Lady Madeline represents a series of firsts for me, as much as it does for my hero, Hugo. Never before have I written a prequel. Never before have I written back-to-front in a series. And never before have I written—essentially—a “jock hero.”
I can pinpoint almost the exact moment when The Lyons Pride was “born”: in December 2012, while I was writing a guest blog to promote my debut novel, Waltz with a Stranger. The topic was families in romance, and while discussing the various clans I’d encountered as a reader of the genre, I suddenly flashed on a moment in The Lion in Winter, one of my favorite films of all time. Specifically, the moment where Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) drives her husband, Henry II (Peter O’Toole), literally screaming from the room, then slides down a wall, murmuring, “Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?”
Few would argue that the Angevin Plantagenets were among the most dysfunctional families in history, which was surely exacerbated by how much power and influence they wielded not only in England but in France as well. The idea took hold of me: who might these people be in another time and place, in a slightly different set of circumstances? Would their destinies play out in the exact same tragic way? Or would it be possible for these contentious, competitive, too-clever-for-their-own-good people to win happier endings than their historical counterparts did?
Reimagining historical characters and events in a more modern context isn’t exactly new. Susan Howatch updated the Angevins’ story to Edwardian Cornwall and beyond in Penmarric, and retained most of its tragic elements. And Empire, a new television series on FOX, transfers it to the present day and uses the hip-hop music industry as a background. I have yet to see a single episode of Empire, but the reported parallels amuse me—and so does the family’s surname, which differs by one letter from my own choice. Pure coincidence, I assure you!
I chose late Victorian England as the setting for my series, approximately 700 years after The Lion in Winter, which takes place in 1183. And Yorkshire, an appropriately wild, rugged location that evokes memories for me of the Brontës, The Secret Garden, and Richard III. I started writing the first book—Devices & Desires—in mid-2013, and finished in late 2014, after a difficult stretch of real life that I’ve referred to as “The Summer of Suck.” I was relieved to have completed it against what sometimes felt like impossible odds, cautiously pleased with the result, and prepared to take a short hiatus to concentrate on other projects while letting nascent ideas percolate for the next novel in the series.
Except then the hero’s older sister, Madeline, tapped me on the shoulder and insisted that I tell her story, which takes place almost a decade before Devices & Desires. Now, as a general rule, my muse prefers generating sequels. Prequels can be such disobliging things, only showing their significance after the fact, to which an exasperated author might exclaim: “Where were you before I started writing Book One? And why should I tie myself in knots trying to fit you into the timeline now? Okay, fine—here’s a flashback. Now go away, and stop bothering me.”
Except when they won’t, which turned out to be the case here. In retrospect, I shouldn’t really have been surprised: Madeline is a Lyons, after all, and as imperious as the rest of the family. Once I bowed to the inevitable, however, I found myself enjoying the experience of developing her story. For one thing, I had more latitude with Madeline than I did with her parents and brothers. Henry and Eleanor’s daughters were all sent away as children to make foreign marriages of alliance. (Matilda—Madeline’s historical counterpart—was married at eleven to Henry, Duke of Saxony, who was almost thirty years older.) That was less likely to happen in the time I’d chosen, so I could develop her as an adult character.
I could also flesh out the love story and make Madeline’s husband, Hugo, more of a person too. I’d established him in Devices & Desires as an amiable, easygoing, aristocratic sportsman—a bit of a departure for me, since my heroes tend to be intellectuals, artists, or hard-working professional men. What might Madeline see in a man who, on the surface, was so different from her and from the males who surrounded her while she was growing up? What attracts an artist to “a jock”—beyond the physical appeal, of course!
The surprise for me was that I became as fond of the good-natured, unassuming Hugo as I was of Madeline. Kindness is one of the most appealing traits a character can possess, and Hugo had it in spades. Plus, writing from his point-of-view allowed me a new perspective on the Lyons family, as a whole. Like the reader, Hugo is meeting them for the first time, as an outsider. He doesn’t yet know what makes them tick… but he’s about to find out.
So when it comes to writing prequels, I have learned to “never say never.” Because sometimes an experience that you’ve previously rejected out of hand turns out to be more fun than you can possibly imagine!
As for Madeline and Hugo, they’ll be back! As supporting characters and, perhaps, someday as leads in another story. The Lyons Pride will likely keep me busy for some time to come—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Acknowledgments
I owe more than I can possibly say to the following:
My betas, especially Angela, for pushing me across the finish line every time I start this race.
Kim Killion of The Killion Group for designing a beautiful cover that exceeded all my expectations and made me determined to write a story that lived up to it.
Dawn Charles of BookGraphics.Net for the Blue Castle logo, which makes me feel like a pro whenever I look at it.
The community of self-published and hybrid authors, who share their experience and advice so generously.
My family, for their support and their faith in me.
My readers, who remind me every day that the stories are what matter.
About the Author
Pamela Sherwood is an avid reader of multiple genres (horror excepted) and aspires to be a prolific writer of multiple genres (again, horror excepted). In a previous life, she earned a doctorate in English literature, specializing in the Romantic and Victorian periods, and taught college-level literature and writing courses. At present, she writes historical romance and fantasy. Her books have received starred reviews in Booklist and Library Journal, and Waltz with a Stranger, her debut novel, won the Laurel Wreath Award for Best Historical Romance in 2013. She recently published her first work of fantasy, Awakened and Other Enchanted Tales. Pamela lives with her family in Southern California, where she continues to read voraciously, spin plots, and straddle genres to tell the kind of stories she loves.
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Visit her on the web at http://pamelasherwood.com, facebook.com/PamelaSherwoodAuthor, and twitter.com/#!/pamela_sherwood
Also by Pamela Sherwood
The Lyons Pride
The Advent of Lady Madeline
Devices & Desires
A Bride by Michaelmas (forthcoming)
Women & Wine (forthcoming)
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The Heiress Series
Waltz with a Stranger
A Scandal in Newport
A Song at Twilight
A Wedding in Cornwall
The Heiress Brides (collection, forthcoming)
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Short Story Collections
Awakened and Other Enchanted Tales
Thank you for reading books on Archive.
The Advent of Lady Madeline Page 11
