April Taylor: British Crime Writer: 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