Ask the Author: Jessica Cale
Answered Questions (3)
Jessica Cale
Hi, Lee! I use a little of both by default. I'm American, but I started writing professionally the UK, so I used British spelling for a long time. Now I write for an American publisher and their house style uses standard American spellings, so all of my books use that as well. I'm working on changing back to American full-time, but a few words still manage to sneak through now and then! Thanks for the great question! :)
Jessica Cale
Thank you for the question! The Southwark Saga really started with the idea for Tyburn, which actually came from a nightmare I had about the horse! The dream was set in another period, and the horse was on its way to a hanging. It was an incredibly vivid dream and it really haunted me, so I decided I had to put it into writing to make sense of it. I wrote the execution of Claude Duval first, and that has remained the first scene of the book.
You're absolutely right about London -- I lived in the UK for seven years and traveled to London several times. The first time I went to London, I got lost and Tyburn was actually the first landmark I saw there! I've always loved history, so living in the UK was a treat. My husband is from London (south of the river -- you might have guessed!), so we went down as often as we could. London is really one big historic site, so I would try to imagine it as it used to be. John's degrees are in seventeenth century history, so he would tell me all of these little anecdotes about the places and their history, and this is really what got me interested in that period. Plus, between the two of us, we have plenty of books!
When reading about London and the surrounding areas at the time, I was really drawn to Southwark. It was still a separate town, but so close to London, and was considered a "bastard sanctuary" -- because of the cathedral, much of it was still sacred ground and people couldn't be arrested there for a time, so it attracted a certain criminal element. It was an incredibly poor area, and it had docks, the smellier trades, prisons, fighting pits, and even lepers. It seemed like the perfect place for highwayman Mark Virtue to live, and a great place for Sally to hide in Tyburn. Jane has to try to survive it in Virtue's Lady. Southwark has a very long and colorful history (it's even mentioned in the Canterbury Tales) and it becomes almost a character in itself in the books. I named the series The Southwark Saga because all of the future books are going to be connected to it in some way, and will follow the characters who live there in Tyburn and Virtue's Lady.
Thanks for reading! :)
You're absolutely right about London -- I lived in the UK for seven years and traveled to London several times. The first time I went to London, I got lost and Tyburn was actually the first landmark I saw there! I've always loved history, so living in the UK was a treat. My husband is from London (south of the river -- you might have guessed!), so we went down as often as we could. London is really one big historic site, so I would try to imagine it as it used to be. John's degrees are in seventeenth century history, so he would tell me all of these little anecdotes about the places and their history, and this is really what got me interested in that period. Plus, between the two of us, we have plenty of books!
When reading about London and the surrounding areas at the time, I was really drawn to Southwark. It was still a separate town, but so close to London, and was considered a "bastard sanctuary" -- because of the cathedral, much of it was still sacred ground and people couldn't be arrested there for a time, so it attracted a certain criminal element. It was an incredibly poor area, and it had docks, the smellier trades, prisons, fighting pits, and even lepers. It seemed like the perfect place for highwayman Mark Virtue to live, and a great place for Sally to hide in Tyburn. Jane has to try to survive it in Virtue's Lady. Southwark has a very long and colorful history (it's even mentioned in the Canterbury Tales) and it becomes almost a character in itself in the books. I named the series The Southwark Saga because all of the future books are going to be connected to it in some way, and will follow the characters who live there in Tyburn and Virtue's Lady.
Thanks for reading! :)
Jessica Cale
Tyburn is the first of a series (The Southwark Saga), and I am currently finishing the second book. This one picks up immediately where Tyburn leaves off and follows Nick's brother, Mark, as he falls for a surprising - and very inconvenient - young lady. I don't want to spoil anything for you, so that's all I'll say! I am also researching the third one at the moment, and this is quite a challenge because it's a setting I'm not very familiar with. There's a lot going on!
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