An Army of Judiths by C.J. Underwood

‘She brought Haarlem to the edge of victory, and the enemy to its knees’

I first encountered the legend of Kenau Hasselaar when I overheard a professor and his students at the University of Leiden’s library in 1994, and was immediately captivated. The professor spoke about the savage sixteenth century Dutch Revolt against the invading Spanish King Phillip II, the revolt that inspired one woman’s fight to preserve the lifestyle that her family had nurtured for generations. Kenau’s battle was the seven-month Siege of Haarlem, 1572-1573. The professor recited the legend of this spirited aristocrat who had been driven to form an army of three hundred women soldiers. He said that Kenau had trained them to fight the Spanish back from the walls of Haarlem, but had refused to wear armour.

From the moment Kenau entered my consciousness, I determined to learn every possible detail about this inspirational female character, a woman that was grist to the mill of my own life story. Although I’d always written, I had spent my career at the time travelling a man’s world; I’d thought nothing of working as a chef in all-male brigades, and was the first woman in the British Merchant Navy to work in the North Sea.

My first surprise was that in the Netherlands the name Kenau was synonymous with the derogative, Bitch. If Kenau Hasselaar had indeed been a Dutch war heroine, I couldn’t understand why she was so maligned by modern Dutch society. After a thorough search of the Amsterdam women’s library, and various other institutions, I was baffled to find nothing more solid than a couple of cursory, albeit reliable, reference works and some old, unreliable stories of Kenau’s part in the siege. I found a tapestry of Kenau in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, but it wasn’t until some years later that paintings of Kenau Hasselaar were available online.

 

It seemed to me that legends have a lot to answer for, after all these years the fable that Kenau Hasselaar was a dedicated cutthroat for the sake of it should have morphed into something more honourable. She may indeed have been a hellcat, but she must have been so much more besides. Some legends just beg interrogation.

Having visited Haarlem many times to research Kenau Hasselaar’s role in the siege, I enlisted the help of a few eminent historians, one of whom explained that Kenau must have been a frequent visitor to the Cityhouse to meet with Haarlem’s magistrates in order to collect writs that she’d handed to her debtors, some whom lived as far afield as Delft.

Luckily, those official meetings were well documented, otherwise no personal information would have survived about Kenau’s lifestyle, at least publically. One historian suggested to me that Kenau might have been quite an unwelcome sight at the Cityhouse, just for that reason alone. I don’t think she’d have been too happy with anyone poking about in her affairs, however, which is why I was so keen to get my facts right. My novel rigorously follows the historical details of the siege itself, which was fortunately well documented. It is a remarkable history that needs no embellishment, and the more I discovered, the deeper went my respect for Kenau Hasselaar, and indeed all the courageous citizens of Haarlem, particularly the women who withstood the brutality of sixteenth century warfare.

My second big surprise was that in Northern Europe at the time, when a city was under attack, women had always fought. Towns and cities were built with ramparts, they were formed as citadels, or bastions, and when attacked everyone defended their home. This was early modern feminism in action. Women were probably more vicious in battle than we’ve ever given them credit for, and as a woman I feel particularly touched by accounts of man’s inhumanity towards women. I immediately put myself in Kenau’s shoes; as a mature Dutch woman, mother, and no fool, Kenau must have known that once those marauding Spaniards broke through the bulwarks and gates of Haarlem, she and her daughters, sisters and nieces would lose their lives in ways too terrible to contemplate. So Kenau wasted no time in contemplating the obvious; she rounded up three hundred of Haarlem’s toughest, most formidable women, and taught them how to defend themselves; to fight off the enemy, and to protect their beloved city. But first they rebuilt the decrepit walls of Haarlem.

Then they waited.

I believe that writing about any national legend carries a great deal of responsibility, but having researched the war in great detail, including Haarlem’s and Kenau’s role in the siege, I agree with certain academics that Kenau’s name has, at times, been denigrated. Legends can be exaggerated, but they don’t make themselves. I am always gripped by the sort of mind that cannot even contemplate defeat. Perhaps Kenau would not have been the sort of woman you’d want at your dinner party, and quite a challenging woman to get to know, or even like, on a personal level. As a character she certainly eluded me for a good while. I owe a debt of gratitude to those who have researched and written about Kenau Hasselaar, whatever their bias.

http://www.cjunderwood.com

Spy Island by Sophie Schiller

As a child growing up in the island of St. Thomas, I used to spend hours roaming through the side streets and alleyways of Charlotte Amalie, admiring the Danish colonial architecture, wondering at the Danish street names, and drinking in the rich history behind this beautiful former Danish colony that captured the imagination of such historical figures as Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the Pirate, Henry Morgan, the exiled Mexican General Santa Anna, and the American Writer Herman Wouk. A single, nagging question always returned time and time again: Why aren't there more novels detailing the rich, vibrant history of the Danish West Indies? After all, the islands have been praised for their beauty for centuries. The capital, Charlotte Amalie, possesses one of the most splendid natural harbors in the world. For inspiration, all a writer would have to do is gaze at her rolling green hills dotted with colorful flowers, lush tropical flora, Danish watch towers, and ubiquitous red-roofed houses. Since no novel yet existed that could satisfy my desire to read about this fascinating place, I decided to write my own. And that is the seed that germinated into my novel "Spy Island".


When I finally decided to write that novel, it took me about a year to develop a plot in which a local girl, Abigail Maduro, the scion of an old Sephardic merchant family, returns to St. Thomas after her parents are killed in a railway along the Panama Canal to live with her aunt, a bitter spinster and her household of eccentric servants. One day, while out running an errand, she stumbles into a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a deserter from a German U-boat. In Erich Seibold, Abby finds the friendship and love she has been craving. She hides him in the basement of her aunt's house, but unbeknownst to them, the island's German Consul, Lothar Langsdorff, also discovers Erich's true identity as a deserter, and uses this information to blackmail him into committing sabotage and murder on the eve of the islands' transfer to the United States, in order to scare away the Americans.


Along the way, many wonderful people helped me develop my story, including the Grandson of the man who was the real Director of the Hamburg-America Line office who was accused of the Americans of spying for Germany and arrested by the US Marines in 1917 right after the Transfer ceremony and after the US declared war on Germany. I also acquired a new lifelong friend in the Croatian military historian who helped me conjure up Erich's back story and his life-altering journey from the Azores to the West Indies on a Spanish tramp steamer. But most important, in the end, I succeeded in bringing to life the last days of a floundering Danish sugar colony in the West Indies with all its charm, nuance, and color. My wish was finally fulfilled and my own journey had come to an end. So treat yourself to Spy Island for a Caribbean journey unlike any other you'll ever have, a journey right into history.

Sultana: Two Sisters by Lisa J Yarde

Prior to writing Sultana: Two Sisters, I had not envisioned a six-part series on the Nasrid Dynasty. Two years ago, after a long fascination with the matriarch of the last Muslim dynasty to rule in Spain, I released Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy. Lingering interest became an obsession that would not go away, even after other novels took me in different directions. Some readers kept asking if there would be another book on Moorish Spain, but I adopted a wait-and-see approach. Once the first books did well, including a foreign rights deal, I felt confident enough to pursue the tale of the next generation of Nasrids.

Spain has always been an amalgamation of various cultures and religions. After thousands of years under the Celts, Romans and Visigoths, the last major invasion began in 711, when Arabs and Berbers took the peninsula. They might have claimed France if Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, had not halted their advance twenty years later. Christian kingdoms slowly pushed back the Moorish tide in the Reconquista until the late 1200’s when only Muslim Granada remained. Still, almost eight hundred years of Moorish rule left its mark on Spain’s identity as a Catholic nation, and on its music, foods and language.

Why do I find Moorish Spain and this particular family so interesting? The Nasrids ruled from their hilltop fortress of the Alhambra from 1232 and held out for 260 years. Castile considered Granada as a vassal rather than an enemy for most of that period and demanded annual tribute payments rather than expanding its borders. Muslim Granada exemplified the idea of the Spanish melting pot, as Christian women became the mothers of Moorish Sultans, men who employed Christians as their personal bodyguards. Theirs was a kingdom in its death throes, weakened internally by infighting between fathers and sons, and among brothers rather than the lackluster attacks of Christian adversaries.

In this period, women whom we might think of as trapped behind harem walls played important roles. Their choices affected the history of the dynasty. One of the most influential women was Fatima, the heroine of Sultana and Sultana’s Legacy, who was the descendant of the first two rulers of the dynasty, sister to the next two, and ancestress of all who followed until the royal line ended with Isabel and Ferdinand’s capture of Granada in 1492. Then there were the Christian slaves Butayna and Maryam, the main characters of Sultana: Two Sisters whose rivalry extended beyond harem walls and toppled the legitimate ruler. With all the internal strife, dysfunctional family interactions and intrigue that beset the Nasrid Dynasty for centuries, I could not help but write about such a family.

There are other reasons why the history is so appealing. The past is usually the story of the victors, those left alive to chronicle events, and history too often becomes “his story”, the exploits of the men at the forefront of momentous change. Propaganda and biases on both sides of the Moorish and Christian frontiers make a full account difficult, but the contributions of Moorish society to the Spain we know today remain evident. In addition, the role of women and their impact merits greater exploration. My goal with the series is to shed light on a period that remains a mystery to many, while attempting to provide good and interesting stories.

These stories have required an enormous amount of research, which started back in 1995 when I was a junior in college. If there is an English language book about Moorish Spain, I have probably read or bought it in the last 18 years. While study was critical in writing the first books of the series, and I often return to the sources, I also remind myself that no one wants to read the history of the Nasrids; entertainment is the goal. There are elements of the past, Moorish culture and the language included to give a real sense of time and place, but not so much as to bog down the plot. I am a storyteller at heart, even if I lose countless hours on details that never make it on to the page.  

Lisa's website       

The Lady in the Spitfire by Helena P Schrader

As a girl, I went to boarding school in London. I was very lonely, and ended up spending much of my free time in museums. One of my favorite museums became the Imperial War Museum, with its magnificent display of WWII aircraft. From the aircraft it was a small step to books about the Battle of Britain -- and "the Few." Soon I was also visiting the airfields; Tangmere, for example, was close enough to visit it more than once. Before long I was imagining a story and I started work on a manuscript while in college.

But soon other projects took precedence. While working on my Masters in International Relations, I discovered the German Resistance to Hitler. This soon became the topic of my doctoral dissertation. The dissertation was first published in Germany by an academic publisher, then re-written for the English-speaking market and published by Sutton Publishing in the UK. Based on hundreds of interviews and material irrelevant to the dissertation itself, I produced my first novel, An Obsolete Honor: A Story of the German Resistance to Hitler.

Yet all the while the idea of a novel about the Battle of Britain continued to nag at me. I returned to the topic, now with experience of a PhD in history and the ability to read and research in German as well. I decided to write a book that would follow the fate of men -- and the women they loved -- on both sides of the Channel. I sought out the memoirs of RAF and Luftwaffe pilots and obtained detailed histories that recorded the sorties, the claimed(and actual) "kills" each day, the damage to airfields etc. and got to work.

Chasing the Wind was the result of that research combined with my enduring passion for the people involved in this critical battle in history -- the ground crews and controllers as much as the pilots. It seeks to capture the tension and uncertainty of this critical phase of the war -- and highlight how many different people in different jobs were involved in the outcome.

But Chasing the Wind ends when the Battle of Britain did, in the fall of 1940, and -- as we all know -- the war was far from over. Chasing the Wind was a long book already and it had a conclusion that was right for it -- but readers kept writing me to say "But what happened to...." Just as important, the characters wouldn't leave me alone either. Chasing the Wind was finished, but the story was not. There was more to tell. So I sat down and wrote a sequel, The Lady in the Spitfire.

The Lady in the Spitfire practically wrote itself. The characters were by then so much a part of me, that I knew what they would do and say in a new set of circumstances. Furthermore, by this point -- after the PhD and the research for Chasing the Wind -- I knew the clothing, customs and even the jargon -- of the period. The amount of research necessary was minimal. I have rarely had so much fun writing a novel!

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Chasing the Wind:  

Where Eagles Never Flew:  

The Lady in the Spitfire:  

Helena's website

"The telling of good deeds is like alms and charity;
it is never lost labour but always has its return."
Chandos' Herald ca. 1386

Souvenirs by Keith C Chase

This is a story about luck and how it affects the minds of a mythical group of American Army infantrymen. It is also the story of a young Corporal struggling to retain his sanity after two years of combat. The story takes place in October 1944 where the Americans are attempting to surround the city of Aachen, Germany; had the attempt on Hitler's life three months earlier been successful, hundreds of lives would have been saved as there would have been no need for the desperate battles of that fall.

I had just completed a one year seven month tour of duty providing security at the American Embassy, Bonn, West Germany. This will be a book too someday. I returned stateside on Dec. 27, 1983. I had spent years researching the interesting yet terrible and tragic history of W.W. 2 and the Third Reich. Not only had I been immersed in European New Wave and the huge cold war missile deployment situation and many other things but it never left my thoughts that all of these issues were taking place directly in the shadows of the then not so old Nazi era.

I shall add that I and all of my German friends were anti Nazi and anti communist. I wanted a direct link to the Germans and Americans who fought the war . I wanted the bloodshed and hatred but also examples of mercy and goodwill that also took place in that sad and massive war. I was myself on a big and never ending quest for W.W. 2 German military items. Much to my sorrow most of West Germany had been picked clean by the time I was selected to pull duty there. I decided in 1984 when I went back to live with my then German girlfriend that a realistic war novel about German souvenirs would be great. To the best of my knowledge no writer had ever examined such a plot. All historical aspects had to be accurately covered. I am obligated and honored to declare that without the support of Rita Rittinga and her brother, Erich and his family of Aachen, Souvenirs would have taken much longer to accomplish.

By 1985 I had interviewed many American vets in addition to a great many former German soldiers. Something most positive was an almost complete lack of any remaining animosity or hatred from these men. This new information was combined with info I had gleaned from American vets I spoke with while growing up in the 60's and 70's. I also hiked through many of the old battle sites, and I'm not talking about those nice, marked, easy to find trails either! I did not want to create characters, rather I must have totally understandable "real," "story people with their very own concerns and souls". Then I need, for example, the reader to be just as chilly, fearful, tired and angry as our story people are. Finally, I must have the correct slang, movies ,music, and lifestyles, not to mention those people and loved ones they also left behind.

Strategos - Rise of the Golden Heart by Gordon Doherty

After leaving Apion in a very, very dark place at the end of Strategos: Born in the Borderlands, I often wondered not where I would take him next, but where I would find him when I returned to the story to write this second volume. The cliff-hanger ending to the first volume was a tempting place to pick up again, but I quickly realised that Apion's story demanded something different.

 

Indeed, having read David Gemmell's classic 'Midnight Falcon', I marvelled at how the author had effortlessly stepped several years ahead from where the previous volume, 'Sword in the Storm', left off. Much had happened in the intervening years. Richly painted and seemingly iron-willed characters had been demoted to mere background figures. The world had changed. But had the author made that choice, or had Connovar and Bane chosen for him?

 

I knew that Apion had to be closer to the tumultuous event around which the trilogy pivots: Manzikert. When, on the first day of my research into this period, I saw the announcement that Michael Attaleiates' History - an eyewitness account of Manzikert and the campaigns of the preceding years - had been translated into English, I sensed the hand of fate on my shoulder. I devoured Attaleiates' History in days, reading of the rise of an emperor who many thought could restore Byzantium to greatness, and of his perilous campaigns into Seljuk Syria. So it was, then, that Apion's destiny was to become entwined in this brutal and treacherous period . . . "

More about the book: http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/writeblog/strategosriseofthegoldenheart

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Future Fans of Gordon's books, or those interested in the history of the Britons, the Rigante, The Macedonians or the Trojans might also be interested in these posts on this blog: 

Legionary and Strategos: Viper of the North

The Quaker Trilogy by Ann Turnbull

Some stories take a long time to grow. For a few years in the 1980s I attended Quaker meetings, and it was from the books in the local meeting’s library that I first learned about the origins of the Quakers in the 17th century. Those early Quakers insisted that people had no need of “hireling priests”, and their meetings were held in silence which could be broken by anyone, male or female, who felt moved to speak. They refused to pay church tithes, used the informal “thee” and “thou” to everyone, and would not doff their hats, even to those in authority. They were considered such a threat to church and state that they were subjected to relentless persecution. I was amazed to learn of their courage and the turmoil created by their radical beliefs.

No Shame, No Fear grew out of this reading and my personal involvement with Quakers, but it was nearly twenty years before I began writing the book. Until then, I had always written for children, but this was to be a young adult novel - a love story. Fifteen-year-old Susanna, the eldest child of a Quaker weaver in rural Shropshire, goes to live and work in town. There she meets Will, the son of a wealthy wool merchant – a scholarly, thoughtful youth, brought up an Anglican but drawn to the Quakers. As the repression of Quaker meetings grows worse, Susanna and Will struggle to uphold their beliefs and stay together.

I started writing without knowing exactly how the story would unfold, or what decisions Will and Susanna would make. When I reached the end I knew I had to write a sequel.

Forged in the Fire starts with Will and Susanna’s attempts to reunite and marry, and continues with the horrors of the plague and Newgate prison, and then the Great Fire of London and its aftermath. No Shame, No Fear had been a difficult book to write as I struggled to find my characters and story. Forged in the Fire was easier. I knew what I had to do; I knew and loved my characters; and I had the bonus of great and terrifying events for them to live through. It was a wonderfully exciting book to write.

Seeking Eden was written much later. A third book – in which Will and Susanna and their children would emigrate to Philadelphia – had always nudged at me, wanting to be written. By the 1680s the suffering of Quakers had increased. William Penn, a wealthy and inspirational Quaker, acquired a large tract of land in America and founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment”, based on Quaker philosophy. This seemed a likely time for Will and Susanna to go. And yet I hesitated. These two dearly loved characters would now be in the background; Josiah, their son, would be the main character. And I was not familiar with America and its colonial history. Could I pull it off?

But the idea would not go away, and at last I gave in and began to read more on the subject. I discovered that there were already Quakers living in the American colonies – quite large numbers of them in Maryland and Barbados. It was a time when the slave trade with Africa was growing fast – and I was astonished to discover that many Quakers kept slaves. I knew then that I had found my story. Seeking Eden takes Josiah from London to an apprenticeship with a merchant in the New World – and face to face with the evil of slavery.

All three books can be read as stand-alone novels, and adults enjoy them as much as teenagers. New paperback editions were published in 2012, and e-book editions will be coming out this summer.

"I felt that I had entered the Garden of Eden and found the serpent coiled at its heart." 

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