April Taylor: British Crime Writer: June 2023

Friday 9 June 2023

Can you make a fantasy world believable?

I am pedantic and I do not mind admitting it. Pedantic with a deep love of British history from the Normans to the Tudors. So, when I wanted to create the Luke Ballard Chronicles in my fantasy Tudor world, a world where Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second and last wife and still his Sweet Nan, I knew it would only work for me if I kept the history as authentic as possible.

It was only about five years ago I realised my original inspiration was the Lord Darcy books by Randall Garrett, which I read almost half a century ago. I loved the world he built, where the Plantagenets were still monarchs aided by magicians, who used traditional paraphernalia of sorcery. As I write this, have decided I will now find the books and re-read them.

However, back to the plot! My decision was that everything that had happened in the Tudor era up to 1536 should remain true, but the world I built after that, would still have people we know about, like Jane Seymour and Thomas Cromwell. Their roles in my books would be a little different. In order to write this kind of book and make it believable, the writer must have a sound knowledge of the period in which the books are set. And, since Pen & Sword Publishing commissioned me to write Crime and Punishment in Tudor England: from Alchemists to Zealots, I like to think I have achieved that.

My principal problem was making my apothecary from the Outer Green of Hampton Court Palace a magician. Especially in an era when the slightest whiff of anything that smacked of sorcery was a quick road to being burned alive—in other words, without the executioner strangling the victim first.

Balance and the order of the universe were principal beliefs at that time. When Shakespeare makes Northumberland, upon hearing that his son, Hotspur has been killed in battle say:

Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Natures hand

Keep the wild flood confined. Let order die…

that is Shakespeare’s shorthand conveying the father’s utter desolation at the death of his son. And everyone in the audience would have recognised it as such.

To be believable, my world had to have strict boundaries. I decided my apothecary would have limited powers; he would be an elemancer, casting his spells by calling on the power of the elements, but only ever working in the light and love of God. But my elemancer would need assistance. I invented helpmeet dogs, greysprings, springing spaniels (their medieval name) crossed with greyhounds, to produce a dog with the scent skills of the spaniel, but the sight abilities of the greyhound. And, to maintain the order and balance of the universe, elemancers would have mortal enemies, sunderers, whose only ambition was to cause chaos and strife, and thus gain power and riches. In a parody of their foe, sunderers also had nasty, ugly, vicious dogs called umbrans who helped them.

When I first had the idea, my intention was to begin after Henry VIII’s death, with his son by Anne Boleyn now Henry IX. And that was the first book I wrote. Harlequin liked it, sent me a contract, and I wrote two more. For various reasons, I decided that would be it for Luke Ballard. And, under the terms of the contract, I could not write about him for 7 years. So, I turned elsewhere and wrote other things. But Luke remained, stubbornly fixed, in the back of my head. I wanted to tell the story of how he came to be an elemancer, and how he came to work for the monarch. Thus was Dangers of Destiny born.
The books originally published by Harlequin will be rewritten and re-issued as sequels. And there are plots for further three after those.

In all the books, I have referred to events that actually happened, but changing just a few details so that they set the storylines firmly in their time, detailing real events. What I really wanted was for my readers to wonder if, in some parallel universe, these things could actually have happened.

You can find Dangers of Destiny here: https://mybook.to/aEYs

Crime and Punishment in Tudor England: from Alchemists to Zealots will be published by Pen and Sword on 30^th August 2023. You can pre-order it here: https://bit.ly/43f0jeB

You can read more about April Taylor here:

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Thursday 1 June 2023

Introducing Luke Ballard. Apothecary at Henry VIII’s Hampton Court Palace. Oh, and he is a magician, too…

When I first conceived the basis of the Luke Ballard stories, I was in the middle of the Atlantic, on a cruise ship, responsible for turning passengers, many of whom hadn’t sung since they were at school, into a choir and teaching them to sing as a united entity. And giving two concerts to the rest of the passengers to prove I had. And not making a fool of myself.

Instead of worrying about the tenor line in Elgar’s As Torrents in Summer, I was listening to a voice in my head telling me to write about Henry’s black-eyed boy. When I finally had time to sit and think it all out, and play what-if?, Henry’s black-eyed boy turned out to be Henry VIII’s son by Anne Boleyn.

In real life, Anne miscarried him. In my thesis, I decided he had lived, that Anne had overthrown all conspiracies aimed at ousting her, and she was still Henry VIII’s Sweet Nan. All of which meant I had to change history to what might have happened in a parallel universe. And, since the universe was mine to build, I would add in magic.

It took a while to find Luke Ballard, my protagonist. He would be an elemancer - a magician who casts his magic in the light and love of God and always works for justice. His magic was to be based around elements and, in the interests of maintaining the balance of the universe, he had to have enemies. Sunderers, in fact, whose only ambition is to gain power and wealth, preferably by demonic means.

I wrote 3 books, originally published by Harlequin, but I wanted to tell the story of what happened before Henry VIII died; how Luke came into his own. Which led directly to Dangers of Destiny. This is the new prequel to the series formerly known as The Tudor Enigma, but which will now be called The Luke Ballard Chronicles.

In Dangers of Destiny, Luke Ballard is a raw apprentice elemancer, sent into Hampton Court Palace to identify the sunderer who has put King Henry VIII into a deep trance. If Henry dies, England will descend into chaos, allowing the Catholic European powers to gain control. Time is short. The King grows weaker by the day. But in the midst of the many intrigues and conspiracies whirling around the palace, how can Luke tell friend from foe? Who can he trust?

Can Luke, thrown into the maelstrom of the Tudor court, identify and destroy the enemy while remaining undetected, and save the King’s life? The stakes are high. And highest for Luke if he fails.