Exclusive interview with author Diane Haeger and a review of her new novel about Henry VIII’s mistress Bess
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“Bess Blount really was so much more than a footnote in the history books,” says The Queens Rival author Diane Haeger. “I became passionate about telling her story.” Blount was the mother of Henry VIII’s son Henry Fitzroy. She was one of the two women to bear the king a living son.
The Queens Rival drops you right into Blount’s life. Blount leaves her home at Kinlet to join the court of Henry VIII at age 12 to be a lady-in-waiting to the king’s wife Katherine. As an impressionable young girl, Bess meets the charismatic king. The queen is unconcerned until the king begins to take notice of Blount. Katherine realizes she may have a real rival for Henry. What will happen to Blount after she becomes pregnant with the king’s child?
“The thing I strive for most of all in my novels is to transport readers and hopefully make them feel like they are part of the scene,” says Haeger. “After that, it is me and a huge stack of research material getting very cozy in my office, all of it gone through over and over again until I begin to see the story line in my mind.”
Having written several Tudor/Renaissance based novels, Heager was aware of the story of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. “When I began to look a bit more closely and to research who his mother had been….her place not only at court, but in the king’s life, all of it woven through with so many other rich wonderful characters like Katherine of Aragon and Cardinal Wolsey, I was hooked.”
“I’ve always been really fortunate to have found incredible experts, professors and historians, willing to consult with me on details to make the work more accurate,” says Heager.
“For the twenty years of my career as a published author, I have either confirmed facts, specified that specific thing are part of creative license, or not included them. I want readers to trust my stories and I take it very seriously.”
“I begin by traveling to the places about which I am going to write,” says Haeger. “Seeing those is essential for me. I have always believed that if I can’t see the places in my mind, if I don’t know what they sound like, and smell like, what it feels like to walk the pathways my characters might have walked, I can’t expect readers to see them either. The research phase is a treasure hunt for me.”
Haeger says that when she began her career, there was much more time spent in library attics and antique bookstores, that the Internet has made research much easier. “For someone like me who has been writing for a long time, that never takes the place of actually touching the documents, seeing them for myself. I adore the scent of old books. Is that weird?”
“There were so many rich and wonderful characters even those just lurking in the shadows of her world. I think how Bess triumphs with a new love, after having been loved by a king…well there is something quite timeless and powerful about how she survives, and thrives. I just love her story! And I hope readers do as well.”
Haeger is writing another historical novel about another legendary woman in history, but isn’t able to say who it is. Haeger has written twelve novels. Her was first was published eighteen years ago. That novel was Courtesan.
Haeger lives in Newport Beach, California. She was born in Santa Barbara. Haeger’s website is www.dianehaeger.com
The Queen’s Rival: In the Court of Henry VIII by Diane Haeger. Trade Paperback, 416 pages, Publisher: NAL Trade (March 1, 2011). Language: English, ISBN: 9780451232205 $15.00
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