Website Outtakes

Recently I've been working on re-doing my website. It is a tedious task, and when faced with a tedious task, my every instinct is to entertain myself by keeping it light. However, one cannot get too silly in a website if one wants to be taken seriously. (Do I want to be taken seriously? I'm not sure, actually.) 

So I toned it down, but I thought I might as well use this version here in my blog, where I am not exactly known for being overly serious. By the way, don't bother checking out the site yet; I have a new host, and I'm still trying to figure out how the graphics work, so there isn't much there yet. But if you're at all curious about who I am or what I write, this outtake should help:

Tinney Sue Heath writes fiction set in medieval Italy. She didn’t originally intend to choose a bit of history that is obscure, often misunderstood, and has never been featured on a television miniseries, but that’s how it worked out.

She was poking around in the Italian Renaissance when she got to wondering “Why then? Why there?” She took a tentative step back in time and promptly discovered a whole raft of fascinating stuff that happened before the Medici, before Michelangelo, before the Borgia pope. She picked up speed as she moved backwards beyond the Black Death, because, trust me on this, nobody wants to hang around in 1348. The Black Death is seriously depressing, hitting depths of yuckiness not even a dedicated historical fictionista can endure for long. 

Onward, ever backward, until she came to a screeching halt at Dante (1265-1321). If you're looking for the source of the Italian Renaissance, this is not a bad place to hover for a while. So Heath learned about those Guelfs and Ghibellines, about medieval urban warfare, about mighty defensive towers and magnificent frescoed churches, about an explosion of glorious poetry and a sea change in the visual arts, about Florentine magnates and the audacious experiment of rule by the popolo.

And then she wrote her debut novel, and it turned out to be set in 1216.

1216? WTF? (Naturally, this stands for War-Torn Florence.) Does this mean she went further back in time and settled on a pre-Dante period? Not necessarily. Dante was still compelling, but even in early 14th century Florence she found herself asking "Why him? Why then and there?" So backwards she went, yet again, until she hit that speed bump in 1216.

She discovered a period rich in surprises, with all the vices and virtues of humanity prominently on display.

Plus, you get saints, not to mention all that complicated Guelf-Ghibelline, pope-emperor conflict. Her first book, A Thing Done, is based on an incident that triggered the Guelf-Ghibelline split in Florence. Her second (not yet published) novel, which begins in that same decade, involves the early Franciscans, with Saint Francis himself as a prominent - though not the main - character. Saints are a challenge to write about, and Heath claims absolutely no special qualifications in this area, but it's a wonderful exercise for the imagination.

She finds in the ever-squabbling Guelfs and Ghibellines a parallel to the polarized politics of our own times, and it pleases her to think that if civilization made it through that mess, maybe we 21st century folk will also manage to muddle through.
 

Guelfs and Ghibellines, squabbling?

 So if you want Tudors, or World War II love stories, or Roman soldiers, or guys in kilts, you'll have to look elsewhere. But be of good cheer, because you won't have any trouble at all finding those things in quantity.

All you'll find here are those Guelfs and Ghibellines (occasionally trading places), saints and sinners (ditto), knights and ladies, jesters and cardinals, crusaders and monks. (There's less place-changing in those last three pairings, though anything's possible, and you just never know...) We're back in the days before glass windows, before wall fireplaces with chimneys, before the great upsurge of religious confraternities. We're not done with the Crusades yet, the Uberti family would really love to take over the government of Florence, and just last year the pope ordered the bishops to stop including hunting dogs and falcons in their retinues. It's 1216. Fasten your seatbelts, and enjoy the ride!

And for those of you who enjoy interactive blogging, here's a little pop quiz. This list contains six things that can be found either in Heath's published book or in her work in progress. One of them is her own invention, and the other five are historical, no matter how odd they sound. Can you identify the one that is fictional?

1) A certain saint used to sleep with his head on a stone. His aversion to pillows might have had something to do with his belief that one he had once used, as a guest in a nobleman's home, was possessed by demons.

2) A jester played a joke on a knight during a banquet, and by doing so managed to start a civil war.

3) A certain pope with a notorious temper used to wear the finger bone of a holy woman in a portable reliquary to prevent him from blaspheming.

Reliquary with the finger of Marie d'Oignes

4) The women of this town used to communicate information with one another over distances by the way they hung their laundry on the clotheslines - the sequence of items and colors.

5) A wealthy noblewoman used to prepare her special almond cakes for Saint Francis, and he was so fond of them that on his deathbed he asked for some.

6) Someone once thought it would be a good idea to make peace between warring factions by arranging a marriage between one of the combatants and a woman from the other side. (Spoiler alert: It wasn't.) Someone else once thought he would just ignore the marriage contract and dump his betrothed in favor of another woman from his own political side of the fence. (Spoiler alert: Neither was that.)

About the author:

Tinney Sue Heath realized at an early age that she had no domestic talents whatsoever and did not do well with repetitive work of any sort. An aptitude test revealed that she should absolutely not even think about working as a banker or a police officer, but she might have a chance as a musician or a writer. So she went for music and writing, and those have worked out fairly well. She is a fan of medieval music, Leonard Cohen, Italian opera, men's figure skating, logic problems, live theater, and a whole slew of writers, including her inspiration for going into historical fiction, Dorothy Dunnett. She plays several Renaissance and medieval wind instruments and a portative organ, but she can't cope with stringed instruments. If there's no way to blow into it, it's somebody else's problem. She has a husband and son who are totally amazing, and if she never accomplishes anything else beyond having them in her world, it will still have been a rousing success of a lifetime. She never writes about politics online, but sometimes she is very tempted.




 

The box liked it

My historical novel A Thing Done, set in Florence in 1216, is now on sale.  For the next month, more or less, we've dropped the price drastically for ebook versions on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes, and lowered the price on the paperback as well.  It's now going for $3.50 for Kindle, $2.50 for Nook, and $2.99 for iTunes ebook version.  (I have no idea why those prices are different.  I just work here.) 

If you haven't read it yet, I recommend it.

"Of course she recommends it," I hear you saying.  "She wrote it."

Once, when my husband brought home a DVD, I asked him why he had chosen that particular film.  His answer?  "Well, the box liked it."

The box always likes it.  But I don't always love things I've created, after the fact.  Some of them actually make me cringe.  It's like when my husband and I record music:  when we play it back, I hate it.  I hear everything that could have been better, everything that isn't quite good enough, everything that could have been played more elegantly.

But this book I still like.  I'm not saying it's perfect, but I liked writing it, I liked having written it, and - most amazing of all - I even liked reading it.  And I think you might, too.

Medievalists.net liked it (read their review here):  "I've read a lot of historical novels over the last few years but I have to say that hands down, this one is at the top of my list," wrote Sandra Alvarez.  It makes me happy to know that people who are familiar with the underlying history enjoy my book.

The Sharp Writ Book Awards liked it.  It shared the top prize in the fiction category with another book, so now it gets to wear a little gold ribbon, and I have a plaque sitting on my bookcase:

Lots of kind people have told me they enjoyed it, so I don't hesitate to recommend it now.  And doing so reminds me of some of the more memorable ups and downs in the saga of trying to sell copies of this book since it was published in October 2012.

Here's the blurb, as it appears on the book cover:

In 1216 the noble families of Florence hold great power, but they do not share it easily.  Tensions simmer just below the surface.  When a jester's prank-for-hire sets off a brawl, those tensions erupt violently, dividing Florence into hostile factions.  A marriage is brokered to make peace, but that fragile alliance crumbles under the pressure of a woman's interference, a scorned bride, and an outraged cry for revenge.

At the center of the conflict is Corrado, the Jester, whose prank began it and who is now pressed into unwilling service by both sides.  It will take all his wit and ingenuity to keep himself alive, to protect those dear to him, and to prevent the unbridled ambitions of the nobles from destroying the city in a brutal civil war.

Many different versions of this blurb exist, because one must try many different things to sell books.  There was the one where I tried it in question form:

Will Buondelmonte's reckless act set off a full-scale vendetta?  And if it does, will even the Jester's famous wit and ingenuity be enough to keep himself alive and protect those dear to him?

 (Answers:  Yep.  And no, not exactly.)

Pleeeeease buy this book!

Sometimes I added more description:

Sworn to secrecy, he [Corrado] watches in horror as the headstrong knight Buondelmonte violates every code of honor to possess the woman he wants, while another woman, rejected and enraged, schemes to destroy him.

I'll do anything to get you to buy this book

I did want to stress the importance of the role of women in this book, since the Jester is male.  So I added this paragraph:

This is Corrado's story, but it is also the story of three fiercely determined women in a society that allows them little initiative:  Selvaggia, the spurned bride; Gualdrada, the noblewoman who both tempts Buondelmonte and goads him; and Ghisola, Corrado's great-hearted friend.  From behind the scenes they will do what they must to achieve their goals - to avenge, to prevail, to survive.

Buy this book or the peacock gets it.

But these days you can't make your spiel longer.  You have to make it ever shorter and more succinct.  I learned that when I discovered Twitter.

You don't get a lot of room to work with on Twitter, and you have to save room for links and hashtags and so on.  If I want to call the book "prize-winning" it will cost me 13 characters.  If I write #buythisbookdammit, it will cost me 18.  And I absolutely refuse to write things like "U r gr8!"  I. Just. Won't.  It's all I can do to stop myself from leaving two spaces between sentences.  Left to my own devices, I'd probably tweet with footnotes.

When my son was very small, he was bouncing up and down in his crib when the bottom gave way, and he tumbled to the floor in a pile of mattress, blankets, and stuffed toys.  He was unhurt, but the whole thing was terribly exciting and he wanted to tell me about it.  Only problem was, he hadn't exactly figured out speaking in full sentences yet.  So he ran up to me and yelled, "Mommy!  Bed!  Down!  Uh-oh!  Wow!"

That kid would have been a natural, had Twitter existed back then.

No so his mom, however.  But I did manage a few I liked.  There was the Shakespeare pair:

"where civil blood makes civil hands unclean": Will could have been talking about A Thing Done.

"from ancient grudge break to new mutiny": The Bard could have said it about A Thing Done.

The book takes place over Easter in 1216, so I did some seasonal tweets on the appropriate days:

The history: Good Friday 1216, Florence - the calm before the storm.

The history: Holy Saturday 1216, Florence - a knight is running out of time.

The history: Easter 798 years ago, Florence - Vendetta. Ambush. Civil war.

I used the first line of the book:

It was a fool that began it, but it took a woman to turn it murderous. Florence, 798 years ago.

And my favorites:

A tale of vendetta, betrayal, a spurned woman, civil war, and juggling.

What happens when a knight can't take a joke?

I'm still considering this one:

Price slashed (Also some of the characters, come to think of it.)

After a while, one gets a bit burned out with this sort of thing, and one might even start to get a little silly around the edges.  (Ya think?)  Then you find yourself thinking up marketing ploys like the pictures above, and these:

Drumming up some support for this book

Ta-da!  Historical novel on sale, cheap!

You try dressing up like your main character:

You dress up your musical instrument like your main character:

Then things really went downhill, and I came up with these:

 

 If you've stayed with me this long, you'll realize that no matter what you think of my book, I'm a better writer than I am a saleswoman.  I'd pretty much have to be.  You should also, despite all the silliness, have a pretty good idea by now what the book is about.  I hope I've piqued your interest, and that you'll acquire the book, read it, and enjoy it. 

And if you'd like to read a bit more about it in a more serious vein before deciding, you could always take a look at my website, or at my author page on the website of my publisher, Fireship Press. 


Images of the gallery and of Putin and his colleagues come from a fun site called PhotoFunia.  Pulp covers are from Pulp-o-Mizer.

Book Club Questions (slightly irreverent)

When my first book was published (in late 2012, by Fireship Press), I didn't include a list of questions for book clubs.  Silly me, I was new at all of this, and I just figured that people in book clubs could probably think up their own questions.

Well, since then I've been seeing lists of questions for book clubs every time I turn around.  So, on the assumption that "better late than never" applies here, I have turned my attention to compiling a list of appropriate questions for any book clubs that might happen upon my book.  I can see a trend when it hits me over the head with a sledgehammer.

First, I browsed online for a couple of minutes -- oops, I mean I did extensive research on what should go into such a list.  I did find one site, LitLovers, which had a list of general questions that could apply to any novel, and my first thought was to gently parody it, but it actually turned out to be a really good list, so I dropped that idea, even though this is my close-to-April-1 post and therefore you can't expect me to be entirely serious.

Instead, I have come up with this list of 10 questions, specific to A Thing Done.  If you've read the book, I'm sure you'll be able to answer them all brilliantly.  If you haven't -- well, you didn't think I could get through a post like this one without a buy link, did you?  Try here.

1. When you picked up this book, did you realize that it didn't contain a single Tudor?  or even a Borgia?  Be honest.

2. You have just read a historical novel that does not have either a female protagonist or (probably) anybody you've ever heard of.  Did you survive this experience?  Would you consider repeating it with a different book?

3. Does the fact that this period has not been featured in a television miniseries suggest to you that it counts as unusual, or off-the-beaten-track?  Discuss.

4. Did you think the Fool was a reliable or unreliable narrator, or some of each?  If he was unreliable, on what topic(s) did he fail to give us complete and accurate information?

5. Who were the good guys, the proto-Guelfs or the proto-Ghibellines?  Did you know that's what they were?

Proto-Guelfs and Proto-Ghibellines

6. Did you notice that the tower the Fool is gazing at on the cover looks a lot like the Palazzo Vecchio (which wasn't even built yet in 1216)?  Do you care?

Tower of the Palazzo Vecchio

7. How would you cast the movie?

8. Did you figure out the significance of the title, or did you forget to space back on your Kindle to get to the Dante quote at the beginning?

9. Do you think that sometimes survival is as close to a happy ending as life is gonna get? 

10. Would you like some more wine?  Red or white?

Images in this post are in the public domain, with the exception of the picture of the Palazzo Vecchio, which is licensed to JoJan via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license,  and the picture from the show The Borgias, author: Showtime, licensed to IraqChurch via the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 1.0 Generic license, both via Wikimedia Commons.

Take this quiz to enter the drawing for a free book

Celebrating

To celebrate this blog's second anniversary, I've decided to give away one copy of my novel, A Thing Done, to someone who is  brave enough to take this little quiz.  It can be the winner's choice of a Kindle edition, a Nook edition, or a paperback (unless you live somewhere other than the US, in which case I don't want to fork over the money to ship a paperback, so it will have to be Kindle or Nook).  If you want it sent to somebody else as a holiday gift, no problem.  I will let this contest run until December 10 before choosing a winner.

If you're not sure of all the answers, try anyway.  You've got nothing to lose.  And since some answers may be debatable, or the questions a bit sneaky, winners will be determined by use of a complex algorithm.  (No, I have no idea what I mean by that either, but you can get away with just about anything if you use a complex algorithm.  Just ask Amazon.  Or Goodreads.)  Comments count.  Creativity counts.  Flattery counts.   Becoming a blog follower counts.  Give me your answers in the Comments section, or send them to me privately if you prefer.  (And try not to look at any previous comments containing the answers!  Honor system applies.)

Ready?  Okay.  Think hard about the 13th century, about Florence, about Dante.  Once you've projected yourself back to then and there, you're all set to proceed.  It's short - only three questions.  Good luck! 

Question the First:  

I'm going to give you two lists, each describing an individual in late 13th century Florence.  Then I'm going to give you a list of political parties.  See if you can figure out which political party each individual belongs to.

If you are the First Individual:

• You think the Pope is a really great guy.
• You're a fan of Count Guido Guerra, who's the cousin of Guido Novello (who you don't like very much).
• You think Emperor Frederick II was the Antichrist.
• Your fortress has square crenellations.
• You fight under a banner that sports a fleur-de-lys.
• You're from Florence, or from Lucca.
• When you look back on the 1216 fracas that was the subject of A Thing Done, your sympathies are with Buondelmonte and the Donati.
• You really respect Charles of Anjou.  Or at least you'd like to keep him on your side.
• You'd love to exile your opponents and tear down their towers, houses, and businesses.

If you are the Second Individual:

• You think the Emperor is a really great guy.  When there is an emperor, at least.
• You're a fan of Count Guido Novello, who's the cousin of Guido Guerra (who you don't like very much).
• You think Emperor Frederick II was the Wonder of the World.
• Your fortress has swallowtail crenellations.
• You fight under a banner that has an eagle on it (even though it looks like a scrawny chicken about to be plucked)
• You're from Pisa, Siena, or Arezzo.
• When you look back on the 1216 fracas mentioned above, your sympathies lie with Oddo Arrigo dei Fifanti, the Lamberti, and the Amidei.
• You hold Farinata degli Uberti in high regard. 
• You'd love to exile your opponents and tear down their towers, houses, and businesses.

If you are the Third Individual:  

• You'd rather the Pope didn't put your city under interdict, and you wish the Emperor would just occupy himself elsewhere and stop appointing vicars.
• You don't really care much about any of the Conti Guidi.
• You suspect Fred II was a heretic, but he was also pretty cool in a lot of ways.
• You don't have a fortress.  You have a perfectly good house, thank you.
• You prefer not to fight.  Somebody's got to keep the shops open.
• You're Florentine.  You're not nobility, and you're not a mere laborer, either.  You might even have a surname, or be about to acquire one.
• When you look back on 1216, you think, "What were they thinking?!?"
• You respect anybody who can hold his own against the magnates.
• You wish you could exile all the big shots at once, rent out their towers and houses, and take over their businesses. 

And here are the political parties (only three will apply, but I like to provide lots of choices):

1. Primo Popolo
2. Whigs
3. The Silly Party
4. Guelfs
5. Tories
6. Christian Democrats
7. Libertarians
8. Ghibellines
9. The Tea Party
10. Communists

Assign one party to each of the three individuals.  Easy-peasy, eh?  Try the next one:

Question the Second:

All you Dante scholars, here's your chance.  Dante's Commedia is divided into three parts:  the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso.   Tell me to which of those three regions of the afterlife Dante assigned each of the following: 

1. Brunetto Latini, philosopher, civil servant, and Dante's mentor
2. Alexander the Great, world conqueror
3. Ciacco, notorious glutton
4. Paolo and Francesca, famous lovers
5. Mosca, whose comment provided the title for A Thing Done
6. Jason of the Argonauts, adventurer and fleece fancier
7. Pope Celestine V, who abdicated
8. Brutus, Roman patriot who killed Julius Caesar
9. Helen of Troy, problematic beauty
10. Ulysses, extremely clever Greek guy
11. Filippo Argenti, Dante's neighbor
12. Frederick II, either Antichrist or Wonder of the World

Helen, Celestine, Alexander, Frederick

 So far, so good.  Now, for our last question of the day, an easy one:

Question the Third:

I'm going to list eleven women who were important in Dante's life in one way or another.  Then I will list several possible roles for these women.  Match each name with the role she played in Dante's life.  (It is possible for an answer to be used more than once.  In fact, it's downright necessary.)

Here are the women, in alphabetical order:

1. Antonia
2. Beatrice
3. Bella
4. Fioretta
5. Gemma
6. Gentucca
7. Lapa
8. Lisetta
9. Lucia
10. Tana
11. Violetta

And here are the possible roles:

• Muse and inspiration
• Mysterious woman mentioned in Dante's writing (and scholars would just love to know more about her)
• Stepmother
• Mother
• Half-sister
• Wife
• Daughter
• Favorite saint

That's all there is to it.  Have fun, send me your answers, and we'll see who takes the prize.  Good luck!

Images in this post are in the public domain, except for the photo of the bust of Helen of Troy, which is licensed to Yair Haklai, and the photo with the swallowtail crenellations, which is licensed to Chfono.  Both are under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, Wikimedia Commons.

A Thing Done gets a few things done (and the author gets a gift)

Two reviews, two interviews, and a birthday present.  I don't blog often about my book, but this has been a particularly good week or two for me, so I'm going to take a brief break from the Medici series (we had just started that one here last week) and do a quick wrap-up of recent events.  We'll pick up the Medici again next week with Giovanni di Bicci. 

First, ATD received two reviews that delighted the book's humble author (that would be me).   One appeared on the medievalists.net website, which pleased me in part because it reaches a lot of people (over 32,000 on its Facebook page alone), and even more because the people it reaches are especially interested in (and knowledgeable about) this time period.  It's very gratifying when such people enjoy my book, and I'm happy that reviewer Sandra Alvarez did.  You can read her review here.  Some of my favorite bits:

I've read a lot of historical novels over the last few years but I have to say that hands down, this one is at the top of my list. ...

The characters in the novel are complex and fascinating...  Every main character has many layers, and flaws; no one is all good or all bad and it makes for very interesting reading. ...  The book was well researched...

I had a hard time putting this book down. ... This is a must read.

In the course of the review, Sandra wrote knowlegeably about the period and the political conflicts of 13th century Florence, and it's clear that she's approaching the book from the angle of one who knows and understands the history.

Hooked on books

This was all the more enjoyable because it followed on the heels of another good review, this one on Eric Al-Mehairi's great blog, Oh, for the Hook of a Book.  (You can find that one here.)  Erin really got what I was trying to do.  Some of her insightful comments were these:

While spinning her unique tale, Tinney also focused on the social structure of medieval Florence and made the reader very aware of class distinctions and family influences....

Her use of the fool lets us into his world, the world of peasants and commoners, as well as the homes, dinner parties, and secret kitchen talks of the men, and scheming women, on higher social ground who seem repeatedly out for blood from each other. 

 And she was kind enough to describe my book thus:

...historically accurate and yet imaginatively inventive, socially thought-provoking, thrilling, and humorous!

In addition to these smile-producing reviews, I had two interviews on blogs this week.  The first was with Erin, who wrote the second review quoted above, and you can find it here.  Be warned, she asked me questions about medieval music and performers, so it is lengthy!  Erin's questions were thought-provoking.

The second interview, with David William Wilkins, appeared on his blog The Things That Catch My Eye.  It can be found here.  David's interview gave me the opportunity to post an excerpt, and also to talk a bit about what I'm working on now and what's coming up next.

And the fifth really great thing that happened, along with all of the above activity, is that my amazing husband gave me a birthday gift - a research book I have been coveting for months.  Years, maybe.  It's an illustrated copy of Giovanni Villani's Nuova Cronica, a history of Florence, composed around the middle of the 14th century.  The richly illuminated and illustrated manuscript is in the Vatican Library, ms. Chigiano L VIII 296, and this volume, Il Villani Illustrato, contains 253 images from the manuscript, some page facsimiles, and fascinating articles on heraldry, politics, weapons, places, and the history alluded to in Villani's work. 

The editor is Dr. Chiara Frugoni, an Italian scholar and historian who has written on such topics as the Italian middle ages, medieval inventions, Saints Francis and Claire of Assisi, and 13th century Italian art.  Only two years ago she made a significant find in a fresco in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, which I may blog about another time.

It wasn't easy to find this book (thank you, Amazon Canada!).  It was expensive, and it had to be shipped from Italy.  It was totally worth it.  I had seen (and if you read this blog regularly, you also will have seen) quite a few illustrations from this manuscript, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.  But now I have more.  Lots more.  Let me show you a few of them, just to whet your appetite:

Giovanni Villani

Here's Giovanni Villani himself.  Florence lost this gifted (if not always nonpartisan) historian in the terrible Black Death of 1348, but his brother, and later his brother's son, took over the work and continued Giovanni's chronicle.  (All of the parts I have used, though, come from Giovanni's own work.)

Have you ever been to one of those historical tourist sites where they strike a commemorative coin/medal for you as a souvenir?  (I'm thinking of the Viking dig in York.)  Here's a guy striking a coin to commemorate a Florentine victory over Pisa:

Here's a depiction of an incident that will probably appear in my next book, in which a lion escapes from the place where the city's lions (kept as symbols of the city) are penned.  It seizes a child, and the distraught mother attempts a rescue.

Here are some people gazing at a comet that appeared in 1264:

There's a depiction of people fighting from the tops of towers (not exactly to scale):

And here's one of the aggressors in a siege, undermining (literally) the city's walls:

Or, if battle mania and mayhem and blood and gore are more your thing, try this one:

I particularly like the woman about to drop a large rock onto the guys fighting below her window. 

I love this book!  This is going to be all kinds of fun.  Next week, back to the Medici.

Images in this post:  Book cover as displayed at top and photo of organ are our own, copyright to my husband Tim Heath; other images are in the public domain (in the case of the Villani, this follows Wikimedia Commons policy for two-dimensional images past any possibility of copyright).