Barbara Kyle's Blog: The Rest of the Story - Posts Tagged "the-queen-s-gamble"

We'll get to the three-armed woman in a minute.

First, I'm happy to tell my readers in the UK that The Queen's Gamble (left) is now available in the UK.

The Queen's Gamble was released in the US and Canada first in 2011 with a different cover (below).

It was an Editor's Choice of the Historical Novels Review: http://historicalnovelsociety.org/rev...




The two covers - UK edition (green) and US edition (orange) - are very different. Publishers use cover art that they feel will appeal to readers in their respective countries.

For example, look at how differently three of my publishers saw The King's Daughter. The top one is the US/Canada cover, the middle one is the UK cover, the bottom one is the Portuguese cover:





So where, you ask, is the "three-armed woman" of the title of this blog post? Well, she's on the famous cover of a book by bestselling romance author Christina Dodd - famous because it was a big oops!



Can you spot the lady's three arms? 1) She's leaning on her left hand, 2) The knight is holding her right hand, 3) Bingo: #3 is beside her right knee!

The author, Christina Dodd, wrote a hilarious article about her adventure with this cover blooper. To read it click here: http://christinadodd.com/christina-do...

There are some stunningly awful covers for various editions of the classic Jane Eyre. Here's one:



For a smile, see more "bad Jane Eyre covers" here: http://bizarrevictoria.livejournal.co...

I'm delighted with the cover of my upcoming historical thriller The Queen's Exiles on which my heroine, Scottish-born Fenella Doorn, has the standard-issue two arms. I hope you like it!



The Queen's Exiles will be released 27 May 2014. You can pre-order it now and receive it the day it's released. To pre-order from Amazon click here: http://tinyurl.com/nozlppk

Happy reading, whatever the cover!

Most of us vividly recall a book that touched us deeply, whether as young adults or at a crucial moment later in our lives. The moment makes us feel a special kinship with the author. It's a meeting of minds, even of souls. It's a bond, and a potent one. (This lovely painting is by Daniel Gerhartz.)

For an author, it's always a happy day when a reader gets in touch to say how much a book meant to them. Sometimes the message is moving, like the Yarmouth museum curator who told me The Queen's Lady helped him as he mourned the death of his father.

Sometimes the message brings a laugh, like the lady who cheerfully told me she got The Queen's Captive because she'd loved a similar book, and then realized, as she was enjoying The Queen's Captive, that this was the very book she'd read and loved!

Here are three readers whose messages to me were very special.

The Colonel

Some years ago I was in England researching The Queen’s Lady and spent a day exploring Hever Castle in Kent. This was the home of the Boleyn family, and Henry VIII came here to court Anne. That tempestuous affair changed the course of England’s history.



As I strolled the grounds in a happy haze of imagination, I picked up an acorn. What a lovely feeling to hold in my hand something living from the so-called "dead" past. I squirreled the acorn away in my pocket and brought it home to Canada, and it sat on my desk beside my computer, a sweet reminder of its place of birth as I wrote The Queen’s Lady. The acorn was still on my desk when I wrote The King’s Daughter. It had become a touchstone that spirited me back to the Tudor world. I was very fond of it.

Then my husband and I moved, and in the shuffle the little acorn got lost.

A few months later I got a cheery email from a reader telling me he was on his way to England for an Anne Boleyn Tour during which he’d be staying at Hever Castle. There would be dinners in the Great Hall where Henry and Anne ate, plus lectures, plays, and demonstrations – “A once in a lifetime experience,” he said. I replied to wish him a happy trip and told him about my acorn. He is a retired air force colonel and lives in Tennessee.

Four weeks later a small package arrived in my mailbox. It was from the Colonel. Inside was a note: “I looked for an acorn to replace the one you lost but couldn’t find one. I did get you this.” Nestled under the note was a pine cone. He had scoured the Hever grounds for it. “It’s from the area where Henry courted Anne, according to the castle staff,” wrote the Colonel.

I was so touched. The pine cone has had pride of place on my desk beside my computer while I've written four more Thornleigh Saga books. Thank you, Colonel, for what you gave me. A once in a lifetime experience.


The Embroiderer

A music educator in Ontario emailed me with praise about my books and told me she was part of a sewing club of about three dozen ladies who get together at a shop with the delightful name The Enchanted Needle. She said they were working on Tudor period sewing techniques, and she attached images of historic Tudor-era embroidery. Now, I know little about sewing but I know beauty when I see it, and these works were stunning.



As she waxed lyrical about bygone sewing techniques like "stumpwork" and "Assisi," "blackwork" and "bargello," "cross-stitching" and "the morphing power of color," I could only, in ignorance, try to keep up, but when she said my books inspired her in this Tudor-style needlework I was moved again by how glorious and various are the connections between author and reader.


The Boy

That's what I'll call him, the gangly pale-faced kid who showed up at one of my public readings from The Queen's Gamble and listened so intensely. He looked about fourteen, the only person there who was so young. After the reading I saw him at the edge of the knot of people I was chatting with. The others all asked lively questions but he said nothing. He looked like he wanted to but he never took a step nearer. When I finished talking to the people, I noticed the boy was gone.

About a week later I found a package in my mailbox: a slender book and a note. The writer of the note said he'd been at the reading and was a high school student who loved history, and he hoped to one day be a history teacher. My novels were his favorites, he said. The book he'd enclosed was Bloody Tower by Valerie Wilding, a young adult novel in the form of a Tudor girl's diary. It had meant a lot to him when he was younger, he said, so he wanted to share it with me.



There, now I've shared it with you. That's what the writer-reader bond is. We share what moves us. And that connection is what makes the writer's work a joy.

*****

My new novel, The Queen's Exiles, will be released on May 27th. To read about it, and all my books, please visit my website: http://www.barbarakyle.com/