Stop #5 of the Bannockburn Binding book tour.

I’m visiting Fang-Tastic Books, and yes, I’m talking about the undead again.  Given the blog’s raison d’être *is* the fanged ones, it seemed only appropriate to use them as my subject again.  The topic this time?  “Don’t Like Apple?  Switch to DOS and Become a Vampire.”  Obscure, huh? :)   Trust me, it all makes sense once you read the post.

There’s also another never-before seen excerpt (unless you’ve bought the book, but that doesn’t count), so do stop in and say hello.  And yes, I’m giving away books, still.

____________

Bannockburn Binding - Tracy

Blood Knot by Tracy Cooper-Posey

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Stop #3 of the Bannockburn Binding book tour.  Romancing the Darkside are hosting me today.

Swing by for an excerpt that hasn’t been seen anywhere else, and drop a line saying hello. I’m giving away a copy of Blood Knot today, too!

____________

Also, a brief housekeeping note, because I’m so squeezed for posts over the next few weeks, this is the only place I can get it in.  Recently, I did a big Spring clean up of the categorized links in the sidebar, updating them according to the criteria — they were getting a bit out of date.  There’s quite a few new entries, too.

Have a browse.

Bannockburn Binding - Tracy

Blood Knot by Tracy Cooper-Posey

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Forgive me for the size of the cover, which is taking over the post here.  I really wanted you to get a good chance of checking out the hero’s eyes.  They’re something else, aren’t they?

If you’re reading this post on a handheld, or via email, or through a media that has crunched the cover image down to matchbox size, I encourage you to follow the link back to the original post on my site and have a good look at the details of this cover when it’s blown up to full size.  It’s absolutely stunning how much Dar Albert, the designer, gets into it.

I told her my hero’s eyes were catch-your-breath blue.  Boy, did she deliver!

And also check out the embroidering detail on the heroine, Bian’s, sleeves.  Dar creates all this herself.

Anyway, in case the subject line didn’t tip you off, I spent all day yesterday chained to my desk, plus I think I ended up nailing Dar to her desk for most of her Saturday, too, finalizing the cover, while I got The Royal Talisman formatted and released.

Ta-dah!  It is now officially available.

You can get The Royal Talisman in Kindle, ePub, RTF, LRF (Sony), PDB (Palm, from Smashwords), Plain Text,  PDF, Palm DOC/iSolo (From All Romance Ebooks), Microsoft Reader, Mobipocket (.prc), Rocket.

And with a small bonus.

The Royal Talisman used to be Masquerade’s Mate.  I have spent the last few weeks editing and adding scenes and wordage (there’s a much longer explanation about this inside the book).  I added so much, in fact, that The Royal Talisman is no longer a novella.  It’s it’s a short book that can be printed in its own volume.

So as this is my “Author’s Edition” I could add all the special features into the stand alone print edition.

Life is good.

I’ll add the blurb and an excerpt below that isn’t from the book’s page.

Enjoy.

_____________

It is 1884 and France is at war with China.  Stuart Sutherland-Bruce returns to England after a posting in China as a member of the English diplomatic corps.  He meets the astonishingly beautiful Bian, an exotic woman who turns his life upside down with the power of his desire for her.  As she continues to astonish him at every turn with the unexpectedness of her life and her responses to him, he falls deeply in love with her.

But Bian did not wander into Stuart’s life accidentally.  She has orders to become intimate with him and prove he has been giving English secrets to the Chinese.  Yet as she works her spell on Stuart, she learns he does not seem to be the traitor her British superiors assure her he is.

Bian is caught in a trap:  If she reveals to Stuart her real — and shocking — identity, she will lose the man she loves.  If she honours Stuart’s highest values and does her duty, then Stuart will be tried for espionage and hanged.

__

An Excerpt From: THE ROYAL TALISMAN
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved

Patrick’s butler returned with a morning gown and other essentials, which allowed Bian to appear in public once more. Dressed in a dark purple velvet suit, which offered some protection against the damp wind gusting along the streets, Bian climbed into her carriage and snuggled under the lap robe. She gave directions for Madame Evamy’s on Bond Street, with a sigh. It was the only establishment she knew. Madam Evamy would have to provide the props she needed to verify her sudden urge to replenish her wardrobe.

Bond Street was as busy as usual. The damp air rising from the Thames and whistling down the street had not discouraged business in the slightest.

Bian’s driver dropped the steps for her and handed her out, along with a caution in his rough accent, “Wotch it, Miss Bian. I couldn’t get no closer and the gutters are a right mess.”

She took a long step on to the footpath and looked up.

Stuart was there.

Bian smothered her gasp of shock with her gloved hand, staring up at him. He towered over her, large in his dark overcoat. His hair was ruffled and his chin unshaved. He looked like he had gone for a month without sleep.

“Dear lord! Stuart! Where did you come from? You startled me.”

His hands were pushed deep into his pockets. “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was as rough as his chin. “Why can I not stop thinking of you?”

She looked around for observers. Her driver stood with the carriage door open, watching with a wary eye. “It’s all right,” she assured him, for he looked like he wanted to leap to her defence. It wouldn’t be the first time he had wielded his blackjack for her and she knew the damage he could inflict. “I know this man.”

“Ye sure, miss? ’e don’t look all that good t’me.”

“I’m sure. But wait a moment.” She turned back to Stuart. “Where have you been, to look as you do?” Genuine concern pushed the question from her. He looked like he had been to hell and back.

“Following you,” he rasped. “I needed to know…needed to…” He stepped closer to her and cupped her cheek with a hand that trembled. “God, who are you? I’ve not slept since that night—”

It was more than she wanted her driver to hear. She glanced over her shoulder but the driver was staring at the passing traffic, apparently stone deaf.

“Come,” she told Stuart, tugging at his sleeve. “Come with me.” She climbed back into her carriage and gestured for him to board, too. She knew there was a risk she would be seen in a carriage alone with a man but didn’t care. The raw emotion pouring from him was making her own heart sing with joy and her insides roil with need. It didn’t matter that this man had betrayed his country. That she was here in London to find proof of his deeds that would survive cross examination in court became a distant fact she could barely bother acknowledging, when before it had driven her every action.

She could only feel the pleasure of being with him, even as dishevelled as he was. His ragged, exhausted, driven state sent a shiver of excitement through her. She had brought him to this.

She settled back into her corner of the bench and spoke quietly to her driver, who stood patiently at the door. “The townhouse.”

“No,” Stuart said sharply, as he sat beside her. He gave the driver an address that she recognized.

“Your house?” she said. “My reputation would not withstand the impact if I were seen entering it without a chaperone.”

“I suspect your reputation has survived far more than a peccadillo of this magnitude,” Stuart said, with a piercing glance at her.

She bit her lip, then nodded to her driver, who tugged at his hat brim and shut the door.

________

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Time is theirs to keep. But it comes with a price.

Out any day now.

(Just as soon as I get the book formatted, basically.)

What do you think?

Book’s page.

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threated life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travellers.

When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveller, takes her client to visit the seige of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman.  Rob finds himself drawn to the willful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing.  Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.

Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is.  But neither of them can stay in the past forever.  To do so means certain death.

_______________

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Even when I was in hospital, I didn’t get huge amounts of time to read — shocking, I know.  Mark smuggled my laptop into isolation, and saved me from going insane.  I wrote blog posts and my latest book instead of reading.

But there were times when I simply too tired to do either, and I did read to pass the time.  Being locked up in a 12 x 12 room by yourself means you’ll do anything to keep from being bored, even when you have the energy of a slug.

So I got a few books read, and I have a few more lined up inside my various readers, because I spent quite a bit of time browsing the on-line bookstores when the nurses weren’t looking.

Silken Threads by Patricia Ryan is possibly the first non-erotic long historical romance I’ve read and finished in about five years.  And it was a near-thing, too.  I was close to putting it aside around the second chapter or so because it looked like it was shaping up to be a typical poor abused heroine/big misunderstanding plot.  But it veered off that well-beaten path and I kept reading.

Although the “sexy” moniker on the cover is probably stretching it, the book was entertaining enough to hold my attention for its full length.  That’s quite an achievement these days, as my internal writer/editor is usually screaming in agony with many books, forcing me to abandon them because they’re not how I would have written/edited them.

While I was completing my annual walk through The Lord Of The Rings on DVD, I also picked up the e-book version of another fabulous epic:  Gone With The Wind.

It’s been many, many years since I watched or read Gone With The Wind, but as I had time on my hands, and as trekking through epics seemed to be a theme at the moment, and there was a reasonably priced e-book version available, I jumped at the opportunity.

I quite like the movie version, but you really have to read Gone With The Wind to fully appreciate why such a fuss was made of it when it was first published.  Yes, it’s incredibly long.  But the detail in the story is mind-boggling.  Mitchell did her homework when it came to the war and living conditions in the south.

And then there’s the (sort of) romance.  Rhett Butler is the epitome of the alpha romance hero.  Dashing, enigmatic, physical, and endlessly playing mind games with Scarlett because he wants her — but on his terms.

Scarlett though…

Scarlett is a fascinating character, but not as a romance heroine in today’s terms.  She almost fits into the Too-Stupid-Too-Live category, and at times, her blindness over Rhett’s feelings just drives you crazy with frustration.  Her relentless self-absorption and self-centredness, despite the incredibly harsh lessons life keeps handing out over and over again, are a little unrealistic.  Any real person would adapt and change.  Even characters in books change over the course of the novel.  But not Scarlett.  She keeps on keeping on…hanging onto her teenage crush over Ashley, blinkered to the real world and anyone else’s feelings but her own.  She utterly lacks change — except toward the end of the novel there are some incremental adjustments to her thinking and responses (finally!) to the wholesale evolution of the world around her.  These tiny compromises are enough for her to realize she loves Rhett, but too late to keep him.

It’s Scarlett’s one dimensional character that makes Gone With The Wind such a chore to read.  Everything else about the novel is fabulous.

I do wish I had her waist dimensions, though!

______________________

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I’m one of those writers who doesn’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t think it exists as an independent condition.  If a writer can’t bring herself to write, then there’s an underlying reason for the “block”.  Resolve that base reason, and the writer will be able to write again.

But there isn’t a disease that blocks writers from writing for no good reason.

I also have never been “blocked,” until this year.

All the marketing experts and industry wisdom, and readers and my sales, everything, insists that the best thing I can do as a writer is to pump out book after book after book, as many as possible, all the same series.  Readers like to read books in a series.  They like to get to know the characters and follow their on-going adventures.  (Right?)

Because of this very sound reasoning, and because I don’t like to let readers (you) down, since March this year I have been faced with writing the sequel to Blood Knot.

2011 has been my annus horribilis (as Queen Elizabeth put it).  It began on Christmas Day in 2010, with the death of my brother, and has rolled onwards with family crises, health crises, and financial crises, until now, here I sit in November with hopefully, the last of it behind me.  I can’t think of what else could possibly go wrong, and I’m not going to tempt fate by speculating on what might.

Throughout all that I started off on a wrong foot.  I began writing a brand new series, Branded Rose.  But then I got some very good advice from a few different sources, and switched over to writing the sequel to Blood Knot, which eventually became Blood Stone.

Now, I’m a fairly prolific writer.  Even with a full time job, I usually manage to crank out about four or five full books a year.

But by early November, I was still sitting on Chapter Three of Blood Stone, and I had to force myself to sit down and write.

Not good.

I stopped for reassessment.  All my “crises” were behind me.  I was (relatively) healthy, and the lights were all green.  There was no reason why I shouldn’t be able to zip through the book, finish it, and get it out for readers, pronto.  Just like usual.

Except…I wasn’t.

The only underlying reason I could think of for not writing the book was the book itself.  For some reason in the back of my brain where I couldn’t reach it, I just didn’t want to write this book.

There was only one way to find out if that was the problem:  Try writing a different book.

I thumbed through my dog-eared and drooled-over collection of series and novel ideas.  Some of them I have been itching to write for years.  Some of them are half-written.  Some series have two or three books already completed, and just need the rest written to be put out there as a complete series.  My collection of ideas is a junk yard of bits and peices, scraps and bodies, skeletons and parts.  For a writer, it’s a goldmine, if you like digging through ideas and story starters and fragments of story, character profiles, etc.

But I didn’t just jump for the series I most wanted to write.  If this was to be a fair experiment, I had to pick a series according to what I thought my readers would want to read the most, and try writing that.

So I did.  I found amongst all my series and novel ideas a series that had all the hallmarks of a great read:  Erotic romance, MMF storylines, urban fantasy, paranormal elements, vampires, and time travel — therefore, historical settings, too.

The series has been retitled:  Beloved Bloody Time.

I brushed off the dust, reworked the storylines and romances, and started writing.

And ohmigod, I can’t stop!

It’s only been ten days since I started working on the first book in the series, Bannockburn Binding, and I’m already more than halfway through the book.  And it’s fun!

So I think my plan is to put out a few books in this series, and then I will go back and tackle Blood Stone.  Or maybe I’ll be suddenly inspired one day and start working on Blood Stone just for the hell of it, and the block will be gone.

For now, I’m writing at full tilt again…and it feels very good indeed.

_____

Update.  I wrote this post and scheduled it about ten days ago.  As of November 26, I finished the book (first draft).  It took me a whole whopping 16 days, and when I couldn’t access my laptop or desktop, I was scribbling notes in my notebook for yet another series idea that is banging inside my head.  I think the dam has burst, well and truly.  Interestingly, I wasn’t actively partipating in National Novel Writing Month, but as I started the book on November 9th and finished on November 26th, I actually did manage to write a book for the month of November, and completed the NaNoWriMo objective, quite by coincidence. 

Tomorrow I’ll be starting Book Two in the series.  :)

______

Here’s a snippet from Bannockburn Binding, and the blurb.

_______________

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threated life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travellers.

When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveller, takes her client to visit the seige of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman.  Rob finds himself drawn to the willful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing.  Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.

Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is.  But neither of them can stay in the past forever.  To do so means certain death.

__

Rob managed to stay away from his tent until sunset, then he could stand it no longer.  He found a platter that was near to clean and heaped piping hot stew upon it, grabbed a hunk of honey bread and even managed to scrounge up a spoon.  He took it all back to the tent, with a lantern in the other hand.

She was slumped against the tent pole, her face against her arms.  His heart leapt into his mouth at the paleness of her.  “Natalie, lass,”  he murmured.  “I’ve food for ye.”

She didn’t move and his fear bloomed larger.  After all, she had been doing naught but picking mushrooms.  If he’d killed her….

He sat his burdens down and cut her hands free with his dagger.  She fell against him, a dead weight.

“Ye should’ve called out sooner, lassie,” he told her, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him.  He began to massage her upper arms and shoulders, where most of the strain would have been.

She flashed to life, her knee driving into the front of his kilt, aiming for parts that no maiden should have been aware of.  Her arms stiffened, the elbows driving into his chest.  Her right elbow landed true and his shoulder instantly numbed, leaving his left arm useless.

She squirmed out of his reach and lunged for the dagger he’d left on the skins behind him.

Both furious and amazed, he threw himself on top of her, reaching over her head to pin her forearm to the floor, even as her fingers closed on the haft of the knife.  With his left arm useless, he could only pin her down until his weight and her own struggles exhausted her.

“Wriggle all ye like,” he told her harshly.  “It’ll do naught but tire ye, and make your meal cold.  I have no intention of letting ye take the knife.”  He shook his fingers as feeling started to return to his arm.  “And the longer ye wriggle the sooner my other hand will recover.”

She lay still, silent.  Waiting.

As soon as he was able, he reached with his left hand and tossed the knife far out of the way.  Then he flipped her on her back.

Instantly, she heaved upwards with her head, intending to smash her forehead into his and blind him.  But he had been ready for such a trick and was out of reach, so she did nothing but strain her already stressed shoulders.  She fell back on the skins with a cry of pain, her eyes closing.

It was much too close to a more intimate positioning than Rob cared to consider.  He cleared his throat.  “Ye cannot win any match against me, Natalie.”  His words emerged ragged and harsh.  “D’ye not see?  Will ye not give it up and let me treat ye civilly?”

She was breathing deeply, but the eyes slitted open, showing dark brown and black.  “Give me back my manservant.”

“I canna.”

She turned her head away.  “Then I cannot, either.”

“Look at me,”  he demanded harshly.  When she remained still, he brought both slender wrists under his left hand and gripped her chin to bring her head around.  She merely closed her eyes.

So Rob kissed her, intending merely to shock her into opening her eyes.  And they did open wide, but that was all he noticed before the sensations of kissing her swamped his senses.  Her mouth was soft, pliable and tasted like ripe peaches.  Everything about her was soft, warm, delicate.  His tongue slipped between her lips.  Sips of honey, he thought.

It was the last coherent thought he had.  His body took over.  He let it happen.  The drive to have more of the taste of her, to take more, was overwhelming.  He let his body press against hers, feeling her with every inch of his length where she lay beneath him.

And her tongue met his.

Her soft moan as she melted against him made the internal flame blaze up, demanding more and more.  Silvery excitement shot through him.

Abruptly, with a cold dash of alarm, he realized what he was doing.  What they were doing.

He wrenched himself away and she, too, slithered back until she was up against the tent pole, her arms against her chest defensively.  Her veil had dislodged, reveal pale golden hair tied back in a thick skein at her back.  The brown eyes were very round.  “What…do you think you are doing?”

It was the proper question any maiden would ask.

Rob spoke carefully.  “I am a block-headed fool.  I must be, for the only other truth is that you and I both know what we were just doing.”

She bit her lip.

The small sign of doubt was more endearing than anything else she had said or done this day.  “We cannot,”  she said and it had a hopeless, final quality to it.

“Aye and I would not, not with you.”  He got up, the heaviness in his limbs making his actions awkward.

“Because I am English,”  she said, her voice harsh.

He picked up his dagger and slid it back into his boot.  “Because ye are my captive.  Only the English spoil their winnings, lassie, but ye could say more on that than I.”  He pointed to the platter, which was still steaming.  His hand shook.  “That is for you.  I suggest you eat it, for there’s naught else to be had this night.”  He threw the rope aside.  “I’ll not tie ye again, so I must guard ye instead.  Don’t try to go under the back of this tent, either.  It’s dark now.  Anyone caught wandering the camp who can’t answer the day’s challenge will be run through.”

And he got himself out of his tent while he still could and let the leather fall across the opening.  He hoped it would be barricade enough.

___________________

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Today I am pleased to host Sarah J. McNeal, paranormal and fantasy author, who has just released her time travel novel, Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride, which you may have seen reviewed and talked up all over the blogosphere last week.

Sarah is kindly giving away an ecopy of Harmonica Joe to a reader, so make her feel welcome.  I’ll draw a random winner from among the comments after midnight on Thursday, April 28th, MST, and will announce the winner here.

Take it away, Sarah.

_____________

Why do we love time travel stories? Is it the enjoyment of seeing the contrast of modern to past? Perhaps the hope that we can fix things and make a better world in the future? Maybe we want to go back in time and read about a simpler, calmer way of life. Whatever it is, some of us are attracted to time travel and all the possibilities it allows.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we each had our own time traveling DeLorean Time Machine like the one in the Back To The Future series?

If you could travel in time, what time would you select? Why? Would you like to spend a day with someone you miss or relive a time when you were genuinely happy? Perhaps you’d like to go to a period of time you associate with peace and tranquility. Was there ever such a time? Maybe you would like to go to the future and live on board a Starship like Enterprise and travel among the stars or enjoy life on Earth with robots to do all the work we detest.

Whatever your reasons for enjoying time travel stories, we authors of time travel stories share a kindred spirit with you. We love them and we write them.

My latest time travel release, Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride, is about a time I particularly love, the early years of the twentieth century when industry and life in America was rapidly changing. The year is 1910.

A haunted house, a trunk and a date with destiny.

Harmonica Joe’s Reluctant Bride

By Sarah McNeal

Available at Western Trail Blazer Novels

Available at Amazon.com

Also available in print soon

___

Joseph Wilding left his prosperous Virginia ranch and his grieving father to live in obscurity and guilt over his brother’s death until he marries Lola instead of Callie McGraw, the woman he abhors but whose life he was attempting to save.

Lola discovers a warp in time in an old trunk when she falls into 1910. She finds herself married to Joe, a stranger shadowed by secrets. Mistaken for Callie McGraw, a thief and a woman of ill repute, Lola finds her life is threatened by a scoundrel who believes she stole his money and only Joe stands between her and death.

With danger threatening all around and secrets keeping them apart, can Joe and Lola find their destiny together or will time and circumstance forever divide them?

___

The dirt road twisted along between groves of trees and meadows. Fluffy tufts of cottonwood blossoms drifted to earth like snowflakes. The scent of wildflowers permeated the air, honeysuckle and wild jasmine. “What time is this?” Lola held her breath as she waited for the answer.

Joe pulled out an expensive looking pocket watch, flipped open the smooth, gold lid and peered at the hands. “It’s a quarter to five. Got somewhere you need to be?”

She felt the vibration of his laughter against her cheek. “I meant the date, dufuss.”

“I’ll overlook the name calling but don’t let it happen again.” He glanced behind him to give her a narrow look but there was a teasing curve to his lip. “I can see where a woman like you would lose track of the days,” he said with a touch of sarcasm. “It’s Tuesday, May tenth, nineteen hundred and ten.”

A sound almost like a sob, escaped Lola. Why had this happened to her? What had she ever done to deserve such trouble in her life, the impending danger of being murdered by someone she didn’t even know and this freakish displacement in time? She wanted it all to go away, to not be real.

Her thumb ached and, when she examined what cause the discomfort, she saw a splinter had lodged in it. Sucking in a deep breath, she pinched the splinter between her index finger and thumb and pulled it out. It hurt worse for a second then settled down. The sight of the droplet of blood that oozed from the tiny wound clarified the reality of her situation. All of this was real. What had happened to take her away from her life into this place, this time?

Could it be possible that the infamous Callie McGraw had switched places with her? Was she living her Great-Great-Aunt Callie’s life? How was such a thing even possible? Had something mystical happened? Was her life in possession of the corrupt Callie McGraw? A streak of cold impending doom ran up her spine.

Lola took a deep, calming breath to still the hysteria running in rampant energy in her veins. Regaining her emotional balance, she centered on the important thing to do right now. It wasn’t how she came to be here or whose life she displaced when she arrived, but rather, how to restore herself to her rightful place and time. She intended to find some answers and get back to her century because the very thought of that horrible woman taking over her life made her grit her teeth with panic.

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Constantinople from the Sea of Marmara, with the dome of the world famous Hagia Sophia in the background. It was the largest single domed structure built in the western world at the time. It would be rebuilt twice because of riots and fire.

It was probably inevitable I end up writing time travel romances.  I’ve never been able to write anything else but romances, even when I was supposedly writing mysteries.  Add in the fact that a) I’m a history nut,  b) the historical romance market is all but dead in the water and c) time travel romances, on the other hand…well, I managed to sell mine, so they’re apparently not quite dead, and d), (very important!) I combined my time travel with erotic urban fantasy/paranormal and those — The Time Crossed Love series – are selling very well indeed, thank you very much.

As an author and history nut, I get the best of both worlds.  I get to research all sorts of interesting pockets of history, but I don’t have to research very heavily.  I don’t have a thesis to defend, and I don’t have to bog down into original source documents written in original languages.  I can skip across the surface of history, and dive deeper when I find something interesting.  As long as my research is accurate, and the worlds I build inside my fiction authentic, then my research is adequate.  Bliss, in other words.

Except for one flaw:  I don’t get to actually go to those places I research.  And that sad fact has impacted rather heavily on me recently.  I’ve been researching for Kiss Across Chains, the third book in the Time Crossed Love series.  Brody’s story, for those of you who are following the series.

My research brought me to new territory for a change.  6th Century Constantinople.

What a fascinating city!

The fall of Constantinople in 1453. The double-wall system withstood all attacks up until then. It took the invention of gunpowder for them to fall.

I’ve known a bit about Constantinople for years.  If  you read or research much in and around the ancient times in western/eastern Europe, t’s hard to avoid hearing about the city state  and its influence over politics, religion and economics from about the fifth century onwards.

When Rome fell to the barbarians around that time, the new Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine, moved the seat of the empire to Byzantium, an ancient city sitting on a promontory of land jutting into the Golden Horn — a strategic location for shipping and land routes between Europe and the East.  Constantine renamed the city New Rome, and formally consecrated it on 11 May, 330.  But as the city grew in influence and importance, it became known as his city, as “Constantinople,” and that has been the name for the city right up until the 20th Century.

The double walls still stand today -- even the sea-front walls are still intact.

Very early on in the city’s life, a series of double walls were built to completely surround it, including right along the seafront and many harbours.  These walls were miracles of engineering at that time.  They were so strongly built that Constantinople withstood all sieges and attacks for centuries, right up until the 15th century, when invading Turks defeating the city with gunpowder.  It took the invention of explosives to overcome the city walls.  But even today, the walls still stand, mostly intact, throughout Istanbul, which the Turks renamed their conquered city.

The cultural life of Constantinople was eye-popping.  If all roads led to Rome a century or two before, all wealth and beauty poured into Constantinople.  The population of Constantinople alone was staggering.  During periods when the rest of Europe was struggling with plague, famine and generally poor economic times, Constantinople never had less than one million inhabitants behind its walls.  The second biggest city in size anywhere in Europe estimated its population at around twenty thousand people.  Constantinople simply worked on a different scale than the rest of the world.

Historians have estimated that Constantinople also controlled a lion’s share of Europe’s wealth, too.  There have been reports suggesting that Constantinople contained as much as a third of the western world’s gold, coinage and valuables, all behind those walls, while the rest of the world shared the rest.

Interior of the Hagia Sophia, looking up into the dome

The clothes, houses and decorations of Byzantines reflected this abundance.  Rich textiles, and beautiful, intricate patterns adorned everything, and clothing was layered, ornamented, colourful and expensive.  The interior of the Hagia Sophia shows the incredibly rich detail and colour that Byzantines added to everything around them.

But as a citizen of Constantinople, there could be drawbacks.  There was a strict layering of have’s and have-not’s.  A class system controlled by economics ensured that many people were locked into their roles for life, as slaves, poor working class, or fabulously wealthy citizens with spectacularly privileged lives.  There was no social insurance or social systems to help the needy or sick or poor.

Land was incredibly valuable and in high demand.  The city was contained inside the walls for centuries, unable to expand, yet the population continued to grow.  It was too risky to live outside the walls in perilous times, but for the poorer people, finding somewhere to live inside the walls could be difficult indeed.

Women were still considered a man’s property, and kept behind veils and closed doors, even though the city was nominally Christian.  But they were treated gently as the Christian principles suggested.

Chariot racing was the city’s favourite past time, as a spectator sport.   Even the emperor himself was a fan.  Chariot races were held at the Hippodrome, which was connected to the Imperial Palace by a tunnel, which allowed the emperor to attend the races.  These races were bloody and ruthless and Byzantines loved them with a passion.  They bet on their favourite factions (Blue, Green, Red or White), and the superiority of the factions and who would win the races overshadowed Byzantine politics, religion and economics, as the factions and those who wanted them to win

would scheme and plot to ensure their faction gained an advantage, come race day.  It sounds oddly like modern sports entertainment, with their drug scandals and game rigging exposures, doesn’t it?  Think of the soccer hooliganism in

Market day in Constantinople

Britain, for instance…believe it or not, but Constantinople got there first.  In 493, chariot racing fans rioted for three days, burning down the Hagia Sophia and the Emperor’s palace, and threatening the emperor himself.  They became known as the Nika Riots, and spelled the end of chariot racing for the city.

Constantinople was a colourful city in more ways than just the clothing and decorations they used.  The cultural life must have been amazing to see.  I would love to be able to flip back in time for a day or two and check the city out.  It sounds like New York with a ticker tape parade thrown in.  Only everyone would be speaking ancient Greek.

Cool.

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