Once a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, her only hope of surviving the scandal that threatens to engulf her is to escape England for a fresh start in the New World, where nobody has ever heard
of the Duchess of Somerset.
I'm pleased to welcome author Jenny Barden to The Writing Desk:
Tell us about your latest book
Thank you for welcoming me to your blog, Tony. My last book out was The Lost Duchess centred on the ‘Lost Colony’ of Roanoke and England’s first attempt to found a permanent settlement in North America. What happened to the colony remains a mystery, and my novel explores one possible explanation for its apparent disappearance.
It follows the fortunes of Emme Fifield who escapes scandal in the court of Queen Elizabeth for a fresh start with the rag-tag band of idealists, desperados and misfits who signed up as would-be colonists. She becomes involved with Kit Doonan, a mariner with a dark past, who has spent years imprisoned by the Spanish and living as an outlaw with a band of escaped slaves. Together they confront all manner of dangers, meet strange new peoples, come to terms with who they are, and witness the breath-taking wonder of the New World as seen by Europeans for the first time.
What is your preferred writing routine?
Ideally, when there are no ‘must do now’ tasks to deal with on the farm, I prefer to get up early and start my writing straight away. Not turning on the computer or checking my phone helps avoid distraction. I’ll usually read through the last scene to get myself back into the action and then continue the story, sitting at my desk and writing in manuscript (I always find my ideas flow best while holding a pen).
Later I’ll refine the work at my pc or laptop. I edit endlessly which may or may not be a failing depending on who you talk to! New scenes are developed in my head while walking the dogs, and worked through quite carefully before committed in outline to a paper draft. Then I’ll write the scene with that micro-outline in front of me, usually beginning with the dialogue and building up from there. Sometimes the characters force a change, but I prefer to at least feel that I know roughly where they’re going so I always work to an overall plan, though the story can take over in the getting there! Detailed description tends to be overlain last.
I don’t set myself daily writing targets because my output is so variable, sometimes it’s thousands of words, sometimes it’s none because I’m working out what happens next and that’s all in my head. I do all the core research first and the ‘embellishing’ reference work as I go along. After a good morning start I’ll usually be creatively finished by mid-afternoon and ready to check on the sheep or do something else that gets me out of the house. If the something else is moving a load of 25kg bags of cattle feed then that can be as good as going to the gym!
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On the way to Cerne Abbas - A good ‘plot development’ walk!
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What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Keep on keeping on! It’s really hard to finish a book, particularly hard to write historical fiction with all the necessary research involved, hard to find an agent if that’s what you want to do, hard get published or to publish a book yourself to a high standard, hard to get your book noticed and hard to sell it. Reading is the only easy part, and I’m often surprised that this sometimes gets neglected because a huge amount can be gained from reading widely, particularly reading the work of other novelists who are writing in the same genre.
So I’d recommend doing what should be relatively easy to start with: read, and socialise with other writers who write the kind of stuff you like; talk about writing and share experiences; pick up tips; join a writers’ circle or some such; get incisive and constructive feedback on your work before trying to do anything with it; take criticism and learn from it. Don’t expect anything else to be easy - if it is then something’s probably going wrong!
What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?
I don’t think there’s a single ‘right’ answer to this question. Despite the tools that the marketing people use, they’re blunt instruments when analysing exactly what makes particular people buy particular books. So I might say that, when starting out, a combination of Goodreads giveaways, author talks (particularly to book clubs), a website and blog, social media chats, providing advance reader copies for review to select review sites and so forth all helped to get my first book noticed, but how can I know which was the most successful when all were being done at the same time? In terms of what has helped most in getting my books noticed long term, once the early ‘promotion push’ dust has settled, then I’d say it’s getting them into libraries. That’s certainly given the books greater longevity.
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| On the book shelf - The Lost Duchess found at the Kinokuniya store in Singapore |
Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research
I’ve travelled widely in researching my stories and I love exploring out-of-the-way places that were once the setting for significant events in history. One such is the Camino Real across the Isthmus of Panama - the old ‘royal road’ that used to provide a land bridge between the Pacific and Caribbean and over which bullion from South America was carried en route to Spain.
Much is now lost under the Panama Canal but an extension to the road, the Las Cruces trail, is still well preserved, and along this it is possible to see hollows in the stones worn by the passage of countless mule trains over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I was not expecting to come across that!
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| Mule Prints along Las Cruces |
What was the hardest scene you remember writing?
The hardest scene I’ve written was probably the rape near the beginning of The Lost Duchess. Sex scenes are difficult enough to write without being prurient, prudish or laughable, and a rape is particularly hard to describe without putting off readers or ducking the horror of the ordeal and its ramifications. The need for such a scene came about because of a change proposed by my publisher. The working title of the novel was originally Traces on a Timeless Shore but my editor wanted something that referenced the Lost Colony and suggested The Lost Duchess. I pointed out that by the 1580s almost all dukes had been attainted or executed and their titles were in abeyance, but I knew that Lord Hertford, son of the executed Duke of Somerset, continued to lay claim to his father’s title and was notorious for ‘seducing a virgin of the blood royal’ after secretly marrying the sister of Lady Jane Grey and getting her pregnant.
He went on to marry twice more in secret and was by all accounts a bit of a rogue. This gave me the idea of having a lady close to the Queen as another of Lord Hertford’s ‘conquests’, a woman who flees from the prospect of disgrace to begin a fresh life in the New World under the assumed name of Emme Merrymoth. She is ‘lost’ in more ways than one. The rape scene that triggers the ensuing events was one that proved very challenging to write.
What are you planning to write next?
The novel I’m working on now is a thriller set against the backdrop of the threat posed by the Spanish Armada. It’s about a ‘chamberer’ and bedfellow to Elizabeth I called Jane Bruselles who gets caught up in the intrigues and uncertainties of that pivotal moment in history. Jane ends up being torn between her loyalty to the Queen and her affection for one of Drake’s sea-captains.
This is further complicated by her desire to protect a young ship’s boy, the only surviving member of her immediate family, and her attraction to one of Burghley’s men who may or may not be behind a series of gruesome murders. So as not to drop spoilers I’d better stop there! The writing is a joy, but occasionally the plot is held up by the need to mend a fence and round up a cow!
Jenny Barden
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About the Author
Jenny Barden is an artist-turned-lawyer-turned-writer with a love of history and adventure. A fascination with the Age of Discovery led to travels in the Americas, and much of the inspiration for her first two novels came from retracing the steps of early adventurers in the New World. Both her debut, Mistress of the Sea, and the sequel, The Lost Duchess, were shortlisted for the Best Historical Read Award. Jenny is an active member of the Historical Novel Society, the Historical Writers’ Association and the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and she has assisted with the co-ordination and programme management of several conferences. She is also a member of the Society of Authors, speaks regularly at libraries, festivals and literary events, runs the occasional creative writing class, and contributes to the Historical Novels Review amongst other publications. Jenny has four children and lives in Dorset with her long suffering husband and an ever increasing assortment of animals. Her current interests are walking, travelling, and haunting art galleries, castles and Iron Age hill forts. Find out more at Jenny's website www.jennybarden.com and find her on Twitter @jennywilldoit 
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