It was by accident that I wrote a novel set in the Tudor era. I was a member of an online writers group, called Unmute,  – which I recommend.(insert) The prompt was to write about a holiday song. It did not interest me. Too serious. 

 Then I had a second thought: instead of dreary as piped-in Christmas music, maybe I could make this a fun write. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” came to mind. It was already fun and silly. 

I imagined a scenario where a suitor sends over-the-top gifts to his beloved. She wants none of them – except possibly the gold rings to help pay for farm expenses. She is tired of cleaning up bird droppings from the partridges and other fowl he sends to her – in multiples. 

 The Tudor era seemed a good setting for this story. Henry Truelove, the hero, and Morwenna Goodwin, the heroine, were born. Henry is a young squire gone to court and wooing the girl he left behind. Morwenna is a girl of lesser social standing who lives on a farm nearby. 

 Being the only child of the family, Morwenna helps her ma and da with the lambing and haying, planting and hoeing. She has no time for Henry’s romantic fancies and such that go on at court. Grown men, wearing flouncy clothing, putting on airs and dancing about, she thinks disdainfully. 

She returns most of Henry’s gifts – keeping the French hens, which bring in good egg money, and the swans that are too beautiful to part with. 

 In short order, I had a nice neat little story, done and dusted. But then I found I did not want to leave these characters. I was having too much fun writing about them.

I immersed myself in Tudor history. That history gave me a more serious purpose for a story that is primarily lighthearted: When King Henry Tudor destroyed the monasteries, thousands of laboriously scribed illuminated manuscripts were plundered. The very books that  preserved ancient history during the Dark Ages were torn apart for their components. gems and precious metals. Some were stolen and sold to the wealthy. Some burned by those ignorant of their value. 

 This historic atrocity fueled the heart of my story. 

Henry, Morwenna and a band of friends form a pact to save as many precious books as possible. Thus, my title: The Lost Books – Romance and Adventure in Tudor Times.

I kept writing and writing. And in not too long a time, I had a novel.