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460 pp
ISBN 1-59102-312-2
Hardcover (6" x 9")
$25
May
Cover Illustration: © 2004 Caniglia www.caniglia-art.com
The Crown Rose tells the story of Isabelle of France, born heir to the throne: her life from childhood to her later years; a life of turmoil and strife and longing....
The year is 1240. It is the reign of King Louis IX. Knighthood is still honored, though the traditions are beginning to fade. This will be the last generation of knights as we understand them. It is a time of intense chivalry and faith; religious orders such as the Templars, the Franciscans, Dominicans, and the Knights of Malta are springing up everywhere. And it is a time of conflict between nations struggling and warring to form their own identities and their own destinies.
The Crown Rose portrays the mystery of one man who enters Isabelle's life at several key moments, becoming her icon, her soul's other half, and her destiny... a man who may, in fact, be much more than an ordinary man. His bloodline goes back to the Holy Land, and he is far, far older than he appears.
The Crown Rose weaves its tale around the actual events of the time, blending historical realism with a hint of the fantastic, drawing upon extensive research to make the story as accurate as possible. It is a tale of chivalry, knighthood, romance, and war; of lost secrets and hidden mysteries; of honor, duty and sacrifice; and the power of a few dedicated people to change the face of the world itself.
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Reviews:
“Although Fiona Avery has worked in many media, she's best known for her comics scripting and has only now ventured into the territory of the novel with The Crown Rose .... Her debut is an impressive one, auguring well for the continuation of a dual career. The Crown Rose is a rarity in the fantasy field, in that it's a stand-alone volume, completely self-contained, and also mainly a historical novel with a subtle yet integral thread of fantastical content. Both qualities raise it above the herd, as do Avery's pleasant, limpid style, attention to detail, ingenious plotting, deft character development and canny core conceit. Elegant, understated and moodily atmospheric, this is the kind of book that should inspire a small Crusade of followers.” -Washington Post
“Screenwriter, graphic novelist, and short story author Avery branches out with this fascinating novel about the real sister of the saintly King Louis IX. Strong historical underpinnings laced with a tinge of the supernatural highlight the inherent drama of siblings at the end of the age of chivalry. Essential for lovers of historical fantasy.” - Library Journal
“Avery’s debut novel is steeped in historical facts, attention-attracting details and subtle threads of the mysterious and marvelous. The clever plot provides credible explanations for historical events involving religious relics as well as major players in the Christian faith. The characters are well-developed ... and the dialogue is a smooth blend of French period vernacular and modern English. This richly woven tapestry of mysticism and miracles is a keeper that will satisfy all.” - Romantic Times
“Avery does an excellent job of presenting her characters and their world. At the same time she builds mysteries which draw the reader in as the mysteries both deepen and move toward their conclusion.” - Sfsite.com
“[A] fascinating novel about a period in history imbued with mysticism, and it is exciting to read something so well encompassing that tradition. Fiona Avery has a marvelous talent for vivid characterization, and makes Isabelle and her family and servants glow with realism. This is a well-researched book, and it shows. Give yourself a trip to the thirteenth century and get this book!” - ReadertoReader.com
“The Crown Rose is a truly enchanting book. From start to finish I found myself wrapped in a velvet cloak of a story. Warm, comfortable and totally enveloping. [Avery] has a talent that must be explored further. A truly stunning book.” - The Eternal Night
“Three fourths historical novel and one fourth fantasy subplot come together in a fabulous thirteenth century thriller.” -Baryon Magazine
"The Crown Rose brims with the rich detail that gives historical writing life - the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of thirteenth-century France surround the reader in a tale of intrigue, love, and a bit of the strange. Wonderfully written, imagined and researched, it is a well-guided tour of what might-have-been - or perhaps what was."
- Greg Keyes, New York Times bestselling author of The Briar King and The Charnel Prince
"Passionate and richly imagined, The Crown Rose leads us between the lines of history into a past of rich immediacy, fertile with intrigue and fervent with romance. Kudos to Fiona Avery for this stirring read!"
- Terry McGarry, author of Illumination, The Binder's Road, and Triad.
"The Crown Rose hurls us into France in the Thirteenth Century - a threatened nation, struggling to survive, and teeming with warriors and monks, philosophers and politicians, saints and sinners. Superb battle sequences and a truly mystical story blend in an exciting recreation of one of the hinge moments of history. This novel is a reflection of both the supernatural beliefs of the Middle Ages and life in a time of brutal military reality. An unusual heroine, a series of unforgettable heroes, and many real historical characters make Fiona Avery's The Crown Rose an exciting and challenging read."
- Peter Woodward, writer / host, "Alexander the Great," The History Channel
Q & A WITH FIONA AVERY:
1. Writing The Crown Rose involved over a year of meticulous historical research. How were you drawn to Paris of 1234 to 1244, and how did you go about researching the period?
Originally, I wanted to tell a story about an order of women knights. So when I first sat down to write, I began with old history textbooks of the Crusading period and some of its outstanding figures. Little did I know that my original premise would not survive. I was beginning to delve into the fascinating story of Queen Blanche of Castile and her struggle as a monarch to raise a son that would later become a saint. When I learned that her daughter had also been sainted, I was pulled right into that storyline and never came back out again.
After I knew beyond doubt that this was the story I wanted to tell, I proceeded to buy a bookshelf full of research on the subject of France in the mid-thirteenth century. I still own almost all the books and I read them all. This period was just on the edge of my expertise in the early middle ages so I had to spend time acquainting myself with this particular period in full detail. It is during the last of this research that I stumbled upon the pivotal myth of Mary Magdalene coming to Toulouse and settling after Christ's death and resurrection.
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2. Your educational background is in history and archaeology, yes? How does this inform your individual style as a writer?
I don't like to bog down the reader in a page of detailed description, so I drop little things in that are fascinating but work lightly into the narrative. There are minor characters like rag-catchers who never say a word, but who tell you all kinds of fascinating things about the period and its level of technology.
I also try to illuminate the reality of the period and banish outmoded concepts of what life was like in 1233. Queen Blanche and most women who were married, for example, were joint partners in their marriages even though they had no claim to the fortunes that came in. They were rarely treated as subordinates because a man critically depended on his wife when he went out to war. She was the one left running the household, which often constituted many subordinate households or fiefs. Many daily ledgers from the period show that a woman firmly ran the show most of the time. If an independent woman did not wish to be married, she often joined a convent. Convents are often mistaken for meek little places of devout worship but that was not often the case as very powerful, very intelligent, very eccentric women gathered to create communities of their own that would give them empowerment through marrying God and not man.
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3. As you studied the lives of the court in the early 13th century, were there any fortunate coincidences or surprises? In other words, did you find anything unexpected that worked its way into your narrative?
Apart from the very big coincidence that two of the royal family were sainted upon their deaths, and the myth of the Magdalene in Toulouse, there were a few other coincidences. Blanche of Castile's signature is found on some documents belonging deep in the heart of the Magdalene mystery found in Rennes-le-Chateau. Her son Charles was said to discover the bones of Mary Magdalene in an altar of an old run-down church upon his succession to the throne in Anjou. The Templars were destroyed by Louis' grandson, and that provided a fortunate foreshadowing that I used to my advantage in the novel. Most books tend to portray the Templars as a good order persecuted by a bad king, which I don't necessarily dispute historically, but it was a good way for me to use the Templars in a completely different light in my own narrative. Some of them are "the bad guys." Thomas Aquinas had a very interesting revelation as an older man that I attributed to the character Jean Adaret Benariel in the end of my novel. I took an actual Aquinas quote and adapted it for my own purposes, for who knows what he really saw when touched by enlightenment that day?
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4. Was there really an "Old Man of the Mountain?"
He is an often disputed figure in history but many believe there was in fact an order of assassins based in the middle east who were sent to destroy anyone who might threaten their nation. Many legends tell of an opium-induced, paradise-on-earth that signed young Muslim men up for suicide missions against enemies of The Old Man. A good text on these men is found in a book called The Templars and the Assassins. And The Old Man is referenced in Joinville's account of Louis' Crusade to Damietta.
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5. So the only major characters in your novel who aren't historical (as far as we know!) are Jean Adaret Benariel and Blanches' three attendants. How did you come to include them in the story?
This sounds so corny, but Jean Adaret Benariel showed up in a dream. The three attendants were a leftover desire to have some kind of order of women knights but with the arrival of the figure of Jean and his link to the Holy Land, they became his sisters as well as an order that protected the holiest people of the land from the shadows.
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6. It's almost a clichŽ in writing that one should always "Write what you know". How much of the personality of your heroine, Princess Isabelle, is drawn from your research, and how much is drawn from your own life experiences? How much of Isabelle is you?
This is a tough question because the characters in my story really are their own creations. I don't try to think them up, rather I try to listen carefully and jot down what I see or hear them doing. But the element of truth to the question lies in that very specificity. I can relate to a lot of what Isabelle does because I am a woman who gave up traditional family obligations to marry my work, much as Isabelle gave them up to marry God. When you are committed to something at that level, you find commonalities that naturally enter the writing.
There is a quote by mountaineer William Hutchinson Murray, "Concerning all acts of initiative or creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too." Isabelle commits her life to founding a convent, and she meets a host who helps her reach that goal. I also find that such "Providence" intervenes when I commit to big projects, so it was easy to write that Providence moved for Isabelle as well as for any person in the world who commits to a plan of action.
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7. Your heroine's mother, Queen Blanche of Castile, was quite an impressive woman in her own right. One could almost write a novel entirely about her. Is it rare to find two such strong, female role models in a period not exactly known for its treatment of women?
--One could almost write a novel entirely about her.
Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind!
What's rare is to find two strong, female role models actually documented in history and that those documents survived and can be read today. Some of the stuff we have on file are pretty dull reading and one must intuit and read between the lines a lot. Some accounts ledgers recorded by Queen Blanche and her son Alphonse for example. You can't see minute details like the purchase of a chess set with ivory figures and not wonder who that was meant for and why Blanche chose chess as a gift - and on and on.
A poet named Thibault was in love with Blanche, despite the fact that she had a surprisingly happy marriage to her husband King Louis VIII. Thibault wrote many ballads about her dark beauty that exist to this day. Even after Louis VIII's death, Blanche still loved him too much to ever marry again. But what if such a poet had not fallen in love with an unrequited queen? We'd never have learned much about this great woman. Blanche was descended from the line of Eleanor of Aquitaine (think of The Lion in Winter) and was escorted to her waiting husband by the very same Eleanor, when she was not much older than twelve. This was the start of Blanche's career.
In my esteem, Blanche is a huge rival to Elizabeth I of England. In my mind, she far surpasses that queen in terms of her character. Blanche came from the country of Castile, a country now part of Spain, that allowed Muslim and Christian settlements peacefully side-by-side, a country that accepted Jewish communities, and as a product of her upbringing there, Blanche brought the religious tolerance and intellectual ingenuity of the Moorish Spain countryside into France. This was at a crucial time when controversial, free-thinking and rowdy Universities were just beginning to form in Paris and the world was opening up to the Franks for the first time in history.
So you can see when you have a mother like Blanche, how you'd turn out very differently than the average Princess of France.
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8. The Crown Rose deals with subjects that many religious people find highly controversial, even though its central character remains devout. What are your own views on religion?
My view on religion centers on tolerance. The biggest failing of religious institutions in this day and age are their intolerant views of other religions or those who are not religious. If I have any at all, my religion is tolerance. I am not a Catholic, nor a Christian, but I feel that the only way to truly represent those who are is to represent them accurately and with the fullest respect for their faith. Many of my religious friends approached me after reading this manuscript, refusing to believe I wasn't "religious" or at least of their denomination. I had to explain that if I wrote a Buddhist story, then I would treat a Buddhist heroine with the exact same reverence and care with which I have treated Isabelle. It is not the religion that should be the focal point, but the mysteries that religion brings to us. The sense of wonder within religion has been lost of late but it is the primary reason we are all drawn to greater mysteries. We all want to believe and that desire must be honored.
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9. You've written for television, comic books, and novels. How do the various forms differ and which do you prefer?
I started by writing novels when I realized I wanted to be a writer. No, let me back up. I was writing novels at age nine before I had any idea I wanted to be a writer, or that you could be a writer. I've always been writing prose but my first professional credits came in television and then later in comics. But I love writing prose the most. Scripts, be they comic, film or television are more like guide books or manuals and there is no interior monologue like in prose. So they are very different writing experiences. I am a visual storyteller, but I prefer to visualize in narrative form over script jargon and dialog.
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10. What would you say to fans of your superhero work to encourage them to follow you into historical fantasy?
My superheroic work is chock full of historical and mythological themes and of course these are present in historical fiction as well. I can't not write on a mythological or historical basis, even in comics. Because we have had superheroes since the dawn of time. If you think about it, and since we are on the subject of divinity and the Magdalene Mythos, even Christ was a form of superhero. The superhero is the savior of the world. My work always contains mysteries and deeper foundations into the folklore of the world no matter what genre, so if you like that you'll get more of that here.
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11. You're working on a sequel to The Crown Rose now. What can give us an idea about where the novel and the various characters are going?
One of the most exciting episodes in Louis' career is about to unfold in his Crusade to Damietta, Egypt. Jean and the Order of the Rose have some unfinished business with the Templars over the looting of the Temple of Jerusalem presumably to keep the objects "safe." And the Old Man of the Mountain is about to make a genuine historical appearance (if you believe the chronicles of Joinville at any rate). In the midst of this, Isabelle is called to pilgrimage as her convent gets underway, and Blanche grows old on the throne awaiting her son's return from the middle east. I'm considering calling it The Crown Saint.
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