I want to welcome D.H. Morris to Books R Us. She is the author of the historical fiction book The Girl of Many Crowns. The author has written a guest post just for my readers, Thanks for stopping by.
Book Title: The Girl of Many Crowns by D.H. Morris
Category: Adult Fiction (18 +), 305 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: New Classics Publishing
Release date: October 4, 2024
Content Rating: PG due to some mature subject matters, but no graphic violence, language, or sexual content.
Book Description:
King Charles, the first king of France, is beset by Vikings, rebel lords, and his brother, all seeking to take his kingdom. To strengthen his kingdom, King Charles marries his twelve-year-old daughter Judith to elderly, widowed Aethelwulf, King of Wessex. When Aethelwulf dies unexpectedly, Judith is pressed into marrying Aethelwulf's cruel eldest son. When her second husband also dies, twice-widowed Judith refuses to accept a third arranged marriage.
As punishment for her refusal, King Charles imprisons 16-year-old Judith in one of his palaces where she is visited by her brother, Louis, and his knightly companion, Count Baldwin “Iron Arm.” When Baldwin helps Judith escape, they are hunted by her father’s men and must flee for their lives. Can Baldwin and Judith hold on to each other and their faith as they face the fury of an empire?
ENTERING THE TIME MACHINE - by D. H. Morris
Even as a child I saw history as a form of time travel. However, my life-long love affair with history makes it frustrating to read historical fiction that includes anachronisms. My quest to avoid including anything out of place in the world of The Girl of Many Crowns led me to read forty books and numerous articles about the Ninth Century. The timeline and the plot for The Girl of Many Crowns came from the annals kept by ninth-century monks at the abbey of St. Bertin. But fleshing out the events mentioned in the annals is where the research happened. Most of that research took place during the writing process. Here are several examples:
In the ninth century kings were itinerant. They had multiple palaces and moved often from one to the next to keep an eye on their nobles, listen to legal matters, and to avoid overburdening the resources of any one region. Immediately, I was faced with the question of what these moves entailed. How many people would move in one company? How far was the distance between palaces? Did they use carts, wagons, etc.? Did they have luggage or just pack everything in straw? Striving for historical accuracy, I paused writing until I had read books on early medieval European royal courts and how they traveled. I learned about the duties of the various members of the court during such endeavors, including the role of the court jester in entertaining weary travelers.
The Girl of Many Crowns is also a book of many places as indicated by the maps included. However, I could not write about those places without researching how they looked twelve hundred years ago. What buildings were there at the time that the characters were there? What were those buildings made of and what history was behind each building or city? Of course, not all of my research made it into the book. But it was important for me to know it in order to write confidently about that time period.
Finally, not being a Catholic, myself, and finding that religion was an enormous part of the characters’ story meant that I needed to delve deeply into early medieval Catholic beliefs, controversies, popes, celebrations, as well as the order and content of the ninth-century mass.
My research started by reading the works of early medieval historian Janet L. Nelson. Her books are filled with footnotes and bibliographies leading to long lists of other scholarly sources. Wikipedia is also useful for finding sources, with one caveat. You should not rely on the opinions written in the body of any given Wikipedia article without reading the original sources cited. The primary sources for citations in Wikipedia are where the real value lies.
The Girl of Many Crowns is heavier on the “historical” rather than the “fiction” part of Historical Fiction. I hope you will enjoy entering my time machine and traveling back with me 1200 years to a dangerous, fascinating, and adventurous period in European history.
A native of San Diego, California, D. H. Morris has lived on four continents and traveled through many countries. She has four children and eleven grandchildren and currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated from Utah State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Choral Music education and pursued graduate work in English at USU and law at the University of Utah. She is also a published playwright.As a descendant of Judith and Baldwin, the author discovered their intriguing story while doing a genealogical project. This journey inspired her to research everything about the 9th Century – including food, politics, travel, war, education, clothing, jewelry, religion, holidays, marriage customs, and medicine. She loves talking about this remarkable time in history when the European countries we know today were being formed and fighting for their very existence.
connect with the author: website ~ pinterest~ goodreads
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