Review of my French historical novel, The War Within Me, plus a video link below

By Tracy

The first few reviews of my new novel, The War Within Me, have started to appear.

I'm especially grateful for this recent one in InDaily by Heidi Maier, whom I don't know but who has many positive things to say about this story based on the life of Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre and Huguenot leader during the French civil wars or Wars of Religion.

'With its fluid, engaging, richly conjured prose and storylines and character studies that are so obviously underpinned by exemplary research, The War Within Me lives up to the immense promise of The Queen’s Apprenticeship, with Ryan ultimately creating a fully-realised portrait of Jeanne d’Albret that wholly convinces in its first-person narration and evocation of the age in which she lived, making the reader feel they close the book better “knowing” Princess Jeanne.

This is a work of literary historical fiction, to be sure, but it is assuredly informed by the twin disciplines of history and biography, and both make Ryan’s story infinitely richer and more multifaceted.'

The reviewer has evidently enjoyed Book 1 of the trilogy. But the novels also work as standalones — you don't have to read them in order, though there's the odd little bonus or textual (vegan!) "Easter egg" if you do...

You can also watch a multilingual presentation of and reading from this novel.

The Queen's Apprenticeship is now out: a historical novel of Marguerite de Navarre and 16th-century France

 By Tracy

“An enthralling novel of passion, literature and power, bringing to vivid life the story of Marguerite de Navarre – an ardent defender of the arts – and in doing so also giving voice to those who were often disregarded in the dramas of the time.”

 —Dominique Wilson, author of Orphan Rock and The Yellow Papers

If you like reading novels set in and around the Tudor court, you might be interested in stories about their counterparts on the other side of the Channel... those who lived in some of the great châteaux of the Loire and in other parts of France – as well as the working people who didn’t.

 

My new novel The Queen’s Apprenticeship is out this month from Transit Lounge in Australia. You can also get it as an ebook in other countries. It’s the first book in a trilogy of historical fiction set in 16^th-century France — and Navarre.

 

The Queen’s Apprenticeship blends the imaginary story of a young outcast who wants to be a printer’s apprentice with the true(r) story of the writer-queen Marguerite de Navarre, sister to King Francis the First, and protector of many people in France whose thinking fell dangerously outside religious norms of the period.

 

Marguerite wrote poems, drama and fiction, but is best known for her book of tales The Heptameron, a compelling mix of gender politics, spiritual questioning and bawdy, even scatological humour – an unforgettable read.

 

Marguerite de Navarre

As the publisher’s blurb for my novel explains, “Long before #MeToo, women were telling their ‘unspeakable’ stories, and these two, both rich and poor, are no exception. They come together in the most unexpected of ways.”

 

The second book in this Queens of Navarre trilogy, The War Within Me, will also be published by Transit Lounge. It tells the story of Marguerite’s daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, during the period of France’s Civil Wars (also called Wars of Religion).

Marguerite's daughter Jeanne d'Albret

Jeanne appears as a child in the later part of the first book; the second book is a fictionalised version of her life and her struggles for the Calvinist cause, as well as her tussles with Catherine de Medici and other players in the turbulence of her times.

 

For more information about the writing and research behind these books, there is a blog about The Queen’s Apprenticeship as well as one about The War Within Me.

 

 

 

Publisher Transit Lounge also has Reading Group Notes on their website for the first in the trilogy.