Celebrating Strong Women in History and Details of a Massive Giveaway: Michelle Styles

In the aftermath of the US Presidential election, I returned a manuscript I’d abandoned earlier in the year, partly because I knew my heroine needed to be a proper warrior and I wasn’t sure how she’d be received. Suddenly,  the way forward became clear and I was able to write the strong woman protagonist that I had envisioned. It also enabled me to focus my annoyance at male entitlement behaviour and use it in a constructive fashion. Some of the writing process for me is utilizing my emotions in a positive fashion.

Do not let anyone fool you, women have always been strong. And history is littered with examples of  women who broke the mould if you look beyond the brief outlines. For example, one of Xerxes’s main naval commanders was a woman – Artemisia of Caria. He revered her advice above his other naval commanders and when she said to attack the Greeks at the battle of Salamis, he did. Or  Septima Zenobia who fought the late Roman Empire. Or St Bathilde who rose from being a slave to ruling the Merovingian Empire and who instituted the first laws against slavery in the 7^th century. To name but three. They tend to be overlooked, just as the women who ran banks and had licenses to print money during the Regency period are overlooked and brushed under the carpet. As an aside, I still see no reason (except for a male self-publicist’s word) why the Lady Patronesses who had access to  bank records, foreign courts etc would need to hang on Beau Brummell’s words about who to admit.

Within the Viking sagas, there are the Valkyries, long held to be a myth because no solo grave was ever found which contained both women’s implements and weapons. However, DNA testing recently turned this on its head when it proved a number of male warriors were in fact female. It had merely been male prejudice that had them wrongly attributed.

When it came to revisions, my editor gently pointed out that I had bottled showing the villain getting his just desserts. I had to agree. In discussions with my daughter, I realised that my heroine had to act. It was a case of an editor’s eyes really opening up mine to the possibilities. I do think The Warrior’s Viking Bride is one of the best books I have written thus far.

The reviews I have received  for The Warrior’s Viking Bride have confirmed my view.  4 stars from the RT. No one does Vikings better than Michelle Styles. The Warrior’s Viking Bride is a passionate romance between a Shield Maiden and a Gael warrior, who find love amid danger and betrayal. Styles’ attention to detail will captivate readers, as will her powerful characters and elaborate plots.

  And a lovely one from Chicks, Rogues and Scandals.Ms Styles has created an original and I found it to be a very moving story about moving on, and second chances. The storyline is a wonderful blend of romance and action with that seductive and mysterious quality that you only get from the Medieval era. I think Ms Styles has got Aeden and Dagmar spot on, they are both highly charged individuals who need the other in each of their lives.

This is so good, I cannot recommend it more. 

You can read the first chapter of The Warrior's Viking Bride for free. 

Giveaway

I have teamed up with Book Sweeps and 41 other authors to create a lavish giveaway which includes my latest The Warrior’s Viking Bride as well as a chance to win a new e-reader. The giveaway ends on 19 February and is very easy to enter.

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances generally featuring strong heroines. Her latest The Warrior's Viking Bride is published on 22 Feb (in case you haven't guessed) You can learn more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk 

Beating Blue Monday -- Michelle Styles

Today Monday 15 January 2018 is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year also known as blue Monday. However it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a number of ways in which you can beat the January blues. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. 1.      
   
   Watch uplifting or feel good television. My daughter and I discovered The Marvellous Mrs Maisel at the end of  November and binge-watched it. It is a comedy with a little bit of drama about a Jewish woman from the Upper East Side New York City who becomes a stand up comic in the mid-1950’s. Beautifully acted with gorgeous dresses and a great sound track. Beats watching the news, an event which always seems to sap my will to live these days.
   
   2.       Book tickets to a great live action event. Last year, my daughter booked Hamilton tickets on blue Monday for December. She had to do as it was when they went on sale but the unexpected benefit was when ever something was not quite right or I felt a bit blah, I’d go ‘ah but we have Hamilton tickets’ and put the music on. But anything you can look forward to will work. It does need to be live and therefore what you are going to see will be unique.
   3.       Go see a great exhibition at a museum. I was lucky enough to see two brilliant exhibitions in December at the V&A – the Winnie-the-Pooh exhibit and the Balenciaga exhibit. The first allowed me to release my inner child and the second allowed me to indulge in my love of great clothes (see above for more about my love of great clothes). But any exhibition will do – go with an open mind and see what you can learn or simply enjoy.
   4.       Go for a walk and release your inner child as you do. Getting outside with natural sunlight can be a great way to lif your mood. If it is horrible out, consider wrapping up well and going puddle jumping or if icy, find some place to slide a bit. Watch the clouds and make up stories about what they represent. I find releasing my inner child is a great way to lift my mood. It means I don’t have to be serious and weighed down with responsibility.
   5.       Put on some favourite music and dance like no one is watching.
   6.       Make time to see an old friend and have a good natter about nothing in particular.
   7.       And last but by no means least, read a romance – something that will allow to escape into another world where you know the Happy Ending is guaranteed. It can be one you enjoyed in the past or a new one by a favourite author or even a new to you author.
   What ways  have you found that work to beat the Bluest of all Mondays?
   
   
   
   
2. 
   

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance in a wide range of time periods for Harlequin Historical. Her latest The Warrior’s Viking Bride will be released on 22 February 2018.

You can learn more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk

Michelle Styles:Polishing the Clock Face

Writing a historical romance can feel like juggling three balls with one hand while simultaneously keeping three plates spinning in the air with the other and balancing a few objects on your head for good matter. Yes, it is your circus and those are your monkeys and you can lose your focus very quickly and end up writing a different sort of story than the one you had planned. The more you know about the majestic craft of writing, the more you realise that part of its appeal is that it can never be fully tamed and there is always something more to learn.

There are plot points, character conflicts, world building, and writing into the mist. There is learning to revise while still believing in the essence of your story. Your ultimate aim is to create an emotionally satisfying story which has the reader turning pages at great rate.

It took me a long time to realize that I write for the readers who get my writing. I can’t write for my eldest son, the recent recipient of a history Phd who considers historical romance beneath him (the poor dear – we all have our crosses to bear and one of his is having me for a mother). Neither do I write for my husband who prefers angsty detective stories with disillusioned male protagonists. Or indeed my youngest son who prefers fantasy and natural history but knows when to keep quiet about his mother’s work.

 I write in part for myself but mostly for readers who enjoy the sort of historical story I tell – ones with a strong female protagonists who eventually find love and an equal partnership with a strong male. It took me a long time to realise who I wrote for and that I didn’t have to change the way I write for anyone (not even my eldest whom I love dearly).  The realisation made bad reviews easier to take and I didn’t have to retreat to my bedroom with a bottle of gin (or indeed listen to helpful suggestions about my manuscripts or my career path for the male members of my household).

However, one of the compacts  I make with my readers is that I strive to get them the possible Michelle Styles I can produce at any given time. And this means that I always have to keep working on my craft. Craft is such a big topic that I prefer to concentrate on little pieces and work my way around. Thus sometimes, I feel like I am rusty on plot or character and at others on setting. Sometimes it is emotional response. Sometimes it is creativity as a general topic (aka refilling the well). (Have I mentioned that I love books about writing?) Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit  suggested the clock face metaphors as a way for dancers to concentrate on their craft. I feel it is also a metaphor which works for authors.

I am self-taught author – basically I have a degree in Economics (with an emphasis on historical econ) and have never taken a course in writing. A friend is currently doing her Masters in Creative Writing – we have been talking. I lent her one of my favourite books on Point of View and Character (Orson Scott Card’s Characters and Viewpoint). I think she was pleasantly surprised that it was actually very good and full of useful tips.

Because I am waiting on my agent to get me her notes about how I can improve  my latest Viking before submitting it to my editor, one of the things I have been doing is reading Donald Maass’s latest  The Emotional Craft of Fiction about  creating emotional responses in the reader. It plows the same trench as Orson Scott Card and Karl Igleias Writing for Emotional Impact but approaches in a typical Maass sort of way (including a few snide remarks about romance authors). Like any writing craft book, there are parts which speak to me and parts which don’t.  I have tried out some of the exercises and it is interesting to look at my manuscript in a different way (currently I think something does not quite work – among other things, it keeps hitting the same note) But what is interesting is that some of the exercises I go to do them and then think – hey I have already done that because it is good practice to have your reader engaged with your protagonist. Backing myself and my writing ability is something I should do more often – even when I am trying to polish the clock face.

IN OTHER NEWS:

This last month has brought my cover for The Warrior’s Viking Bride – both the Harlequin Historical version and the Mills and Boon one. I love them both. The new look Mills and Boon covers are utterly fab, particularly for historicals. The ampersand between Mills and Boon is the combination of a heart and a kiss.

Harlequin Historical version

MIlls and Boon version

I am really proud of this book and am so hoping that my readers enjoy it. (I have not bothered asking the peanut gallery of the male members of my household for their opinion – my daughter approves of the cover though…)

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romance in a wide range of time periods for Harlequin Historical. Her latest The Warrior’s Viking Bride will be published in March 2018. You can learn more about Michelle and her books on www.michellestyles.co.uk

Michelle Styles: Historical fact-checking can be rewarding.

People like their history to be the way they think it was. They tend to get upset when a historian or a historical novelist makes a change that  seems different than their perceived notion. It can be the things you think you know because they are widely accepted fact that can get you into difficulties.

Recently there was a social media kerfuffle about a Roman British cartoon by the BBC. One of the characters was an African military officer supposedly serving in the Britannia. In one picture, he was flanked by his wife. Apparently people on the both sides of the Atlantic (who thought they knew history) screamed – Impossible, political correctness gone mad. Everyone knows Roman Britain wasn’t like that. There were no sub-Saharan Africans there and other such exclamations.

Photograph BBC

 I rolled my eyes. I have spent many hours along the Roman Wall, researching the period and I am happy to report that yes, there were African officers on the Wall. Some of whom may have their families (officially or unofficially) with them. There is a story that the Roman emperor Septimus Severus (a man with North African roots,  it was where the money was during the 2nd century AD) encountered an Ethiopian legionary officer when he arrived at the wall. There were others, including a troop of Nubian cavalry officers who probably were stationed at Chesters. (They may have been responsible for the re-dedication or rejuvenation symbol aka the phallus tile in the floor of the headquarters building which made my children giggle). The Roman Empire was ethnically diverse and they moved trouble-makers from one region to be soldiers in another, but Rome was not multi-cultural. When in Rome, do as the Romans do was an apt saying. It always surprises me when film-makers or other people depict Rome as one single national type. The Roman empire was huge and people did move about.

My problem with the cartoon was that having gone to the trouble to get the skin colour correct, was it too much trouble for the BBC to get woman’s costume correct? Her hairstyle and dress were all wrong for that era.  If you look at tombs of Romano-British women, particularly the famous Regina tomb, Romano British women tended to be all covered up in what has been termed a Gallic robe. Wearing something bare armed would have resulted in the woman being cold and several of tablets found at Vindolanda complain about the cold!  The woman on the tombs had big hair. But that is an aside. The BBC was right to point out that Roman Britain like the rest of the Roman Empire had many hues of skin contained within it. This is far better than assuming African people only really reached Britain after the World War 2 which some people myopically seem to think. 

One question is what happened to these African legionaries and possibly even merchants?  The short answer is we do not know.The large scale excavation of Roman cemeteries really has not happened. They could have served their time and retired back to their homeland. They could have retired in Roman Britain or even beyond the wall (the wall was more like a porous border control) and married local girls or other Romano-British inhabitants. They might have left when the legions left and the entire economy collapsed. Why stay in such a lawless and cold place? They might have been killed during the plague of 541 when approximately half the population of Britain, Europe and the Byzantium empire died. And some might have stayed and intermarried. There could be people whose families have been in the North of England for nearly two thousand years who had an African legionary as an ancestor and that is kind of cool to think about.

In short, checking facts can lead to interesting discoveries.  Given what passes for news these days, it can be helpful to go back to primary sources.  It is always useful to remember that history by its nature is always written through a dark and shadowy mirror and sometimes those reflections are not entirely accurate.

IN OTHER NEWS:

My latest Viking set historical romance THE WARRIOR’S VIKING BRIDE will be published by Harlequin Historical in March 2018. It features a Viking Shield Maiden and a Celtic warlord who has been sent to  return her to her long-estranged father. 

Michelle Styles writes warm, witty and intimate historical romances set in a wide variety of time periods from ancient Rome to the Victorian. Her most recent SOLD TO THE VIKING WARRIOR was set on the Western Isles of Scotland in 875. You can read more about Michelle and her books at her website www.michellestyles.co.uk.