Novels and short stories
The Chosen Man.
is the first book in a trilogy. Set in 17th century Europe
it involves papal politics, the Thirty Years War, and the financial
scandal known as tulipomania in Holland. There is a charming
rogue, Ludovico da Portovenere who is an Genoese silk and spice
merchant commissioned by the King of Spain to destabilize the burgeoning
Protestant Dutch economy in 1635. There are also pirates similar
to those that sailed up quiet European estuaries to capture men,
women and children for the white slave trade.
If you are interested in the historical background to
The Chosen Man, read Tulipomania
by Mike Dash, and a fascinating but disturbing book on the history
of supposed Vatican conspiracies and espionage The Entity
by Eric Frattini.
A Turning Wind.
Writing the second story in The Chosen Man Trilogy
took a long time because the background history was all so interesting.
I started by investigating the spice and gem trade from Goa in India
to Portugal and the rest of Europe around the middle of the 17th
century, then moved on to what was happening in Plymouth and London
during the run up to the English Civil War. That was also full of
fascinating rabbit holes. The kernel of the story start to take
shape, however, after I located letters between Henrietta Maria
and her husband, King Charles. Pursuing this line, I found messages
sent by a Venetian envoy at the Court of Charles Stuart to his Doge.
Henrietta Maria was the sister of the Queen of Spain, and I soon
learned that a secret treaty between England and Spain had been
drawn up just prior to the outbreak of war. So here it was, the
reason the chosen man is called upon to act in secret again,
ostensibly for King Charles, but in fact for the royal sisters.
Ludo’s mission is clandestine on both counts, and naturally he intends
to turn the skullduggery to his advantage, but in the process –
and it doesn’t all fall out as he plans – he finds himself obsessed
by a secret of his own.
Ludo’s journey from Goa was made on a turning wind –
the monsoon. The events in London and Madrid are subject to
a wind of change. And as before, Ludo has the unpredictable,
ambitious Alina to think of – and a wife as well. As Alina, now
Baroness Metherall, becomes caught up between the monarchs in an
unpleasant domestic conspiracy, she, too, has to make unforeseen
decisions.
By Force of Circumstance.
The final part of The Chosen Man Trilogy
takes Ludo back to England against his will, but potentially offers
him a means of making a great deal of money to assert himself as
a member of the powerful Genoese Doria clan and a merchant to be
reckoned with. That his plan goes awry due to the intervention of
the lovely but ambitious Alina should come as no surprise – nor
that Ludo has very mixed feelings about her acting as his accomplice
at the royal court of Portugal in Lisbon.
As with the previous books, the background history to the novel
makes fascinating reading. Specific details come from letters between
Henrietta Maria and her husband, King Charles, plus secret reports
sent to the Doge of Venice by a very perceptive envoy. Henrietta
Maria really did try to sell historic gems belonging to the English
Crown Jewels during the English Civil War: initially, she tried
to pawn them in Amsterdam but when that failed, she resorted to
selling them in any way she could. This is where Ludo steps in –
to his own benefit, of course.
Ludo’s story comes to a conclusion when he discovers his real
identity, which is based on what happened in the Mediterranean during
the 17th Century. What happens to Marcos in Plymouth is based on
recorded history. Each of them is a victim of circumstance; as is
Alina. But I’ll leave you, dear reader, to decide whether Alina’s
choice at the end of the book was the right one, or not.