So I'm busy busy doing rewrites and edits for this upcoming book and you've only to ask the good ladies here at the LIT manor what a curse and a joy this has been!
And don't even get me started with how pouty Lord CM has been whilst we are all dutifully penning our tales!
I have used images and music from King Arthur and Tristan & Isolde, as well as Braveheart to capture a sense of the simple sensuality of dress and manner of that time.
But no one said writing outside of the box was going to be easy and in truth, I don't want it to be like anything anyone has read--at least for a very long time!
My objective of course is that I project the reader back in time--
A Dark Ages-set historical, TORTURED has been a roller coaster project to research, write and rewrite from day one! There are not many novels out there set in this era, mind you. One, it's a very brutal, dark time in many ways and yet there had to be SOME romance and passion, eh? Finding it--was the challenge in my research and making it plausible within the context of my story!
The idea for TORTURED came out of the blue after reading an obscure bit of historical info that there were only 1-2 female executioners during the medieval era of Britannia(now England) You have to wonder what type of woman could emotionally and physically handle such a job--or even want to!
But what if--she had no choice?
While it seems perhaps obvious the direction an erotic romance author would go with having a female executioner, I chose a slightly different path and made my heroine the prisoner of a barbaric Saxon ruler who had brutally defeated the last of the Briton kings. Having lost her family, she carries a guilt that she could not protect her mother (hanged for treason) and younger brother who is cast out of the kingdom and left for dead.
She alone is spared,because of her gift of "sight" (kings back then relied heavily on spiritual magic for guidance) but due to her aggressive nature, the king sentences her to a life imprisoned as his executioners apprentice.
Sentenced to look like a boy, he cuts her hair and dresses her in breeches, but a few years later, when she comes of age, the king sees the potential of her womanly attributes being a benefit to him in extracting information from prisoners.
Further, rumors of rebel armies gathering against the Saxon lord make him paranoid and when a Roman warrior is captured who likely has crucial information about the rebellion, the king orders my heroine to persuade the truth from the resilient warrior.
In the process, she determines that he is the one man who has all the right stuff (as it were) to help her escape this miserable life. She partners with him to plan a grand escape and helps him lay a trap to ambush the Saxon king and his army.
Kept secret however, are the images she "sees" when she touches him...images that give her reason to believe that he holds answers to her past she thought was dead and the promise of her future.
Their journey to freedom is riddled with danger and obstacles that they must overcome and as passion heats up between them, the risks grow greater and their time shorter. (TORTURED Aug. '09, Harlequin Spice)
So its back to work for me now! Deadline is loomin!
Amanda
