Friday, 1 July 2016
The Green Ribbons By Clare Flynn
Release Date: 2nd June 2016
Publisher: Cranbrook Press
Publisher: Cranbrook Press
Genres: Historical Romance
Within months of arriving at Ingleton Hall, Hephzibah is embarked upon a route with unforeseen consequences and she is compelled to make a desperate decision that will change her life and the lives of those around her.
I am thrilled to have Indie Brag winning author Clare Flynn on the blog with a fantastic guest post. Thank you Clare!
Historical fiction - Modern themes
I like to think of my books as offering intelligent escapism.
While I write about past times I try to do so in a way that people today can
identify with – posing the kinds of dilemmas and problems, challenges and triumphs
that are relevant today – even though the way we respond to them may be
different and subject to the prevailing cultural and social mores.
When
I started writing novels, I found myself drawn to past times and distant
places. This was not a conscious decision. The first book I wrote just happened
to be set in the 1920s and I discovered I liked and felt comfortable with
writing about the past.
One of the things that used to put me off
reading historical fiction was the way some books were poorly researched or
anachronistic while others were true to the period but felt irrelevant to the
kinds of concerns I was interested in and the life I led. I wanted to avoid
swooning heroines being restored by smelling salts before falling into a
waiting hero’s arms. Bodkins and bodices just aren’t my thing.
In my writing I try to place my characters into
situations that my readers today could face themselves or at least identify
with. The things that can happen between men and women today – falling in love,
marrying someone you don’t love, rape, unwanted pregnancy, infertility,
domestic violence, to give a few examples – have always happened since people
lived in caves, but men and women in the past had very different ways of
dealing with them. In the most part the odds have been heavily stacked in
favour of men. Women often had little choice and frequently a complete absence
of advice and support in handling these things.
There is often a temptation for authors to gift
their characters with twenty-first century sensibilities and behaviours. This
is understandable as many readers expect it. They want kick-ass women who
behave in the nineteenth century as if they were from the twenty-first. One of
the things I get cross about is the assumption that all heroines have to be
feisty. I prefer to have heroines with more rounded characters – having to
respond to the challenges that life presents them, but doing so in ways that
were achievable in the period in which they lived. I love the idea of throwing
real tough challenges at women who are bound by the constraints of the
times – a lack of financial means and
independence, the expectations of society, and often the control of husbands or
fathers whom they rely upon to survive. I also like my characters to be flawed
and make mistakes along the way.
A young woman today faced with an unwanted
pregnancy has a wealth of resources available to her – and at least here and in
most of Europe the right to choose. Having children out of wedlock is no longer
a source of shame and should a woman decide to take the path of single
parenthood, she will be far from unusual and will have access to a variety of
support networks, often including her parents and the state. A girl from a Victorian
middle class background would have no one to help her, to offer advice, to
present her with alternatives. The most likely outcome would be to be cast out
in disgrace, sent away to have the child in secret, forced to give the child
for adoption and possibly be herself incarcerated in a mad house for the rest
of her life. While a teenager today doesn't risk incarceration, shame and
disgrace, discovering she’s unexpectedly pregnant can be just as terrifying.
The dilemma facing my main character, Hephzibah
Wildman in The Green Ribbons is that
unless she can produce an heir, the husband she loves is likely to be
disinherited by his father. While that specific circumstance is not a common
one today, women can still face terrible choices to save a marriage. The
question Hephzibah must answer is how far is she prepared to go to save her
marriage? Even to the extent of having a child with another man? That is a
dilemma that may appear extreme in today’s world of fertility treatments but
there are still plenty of women who have raised children that were fathered by
someone other than their husband – and kept it secret from all concerned. The
interesting thing for me in Hephzibah’s case is not the secret adultery but the
conscious choice to do it in the conviction that she is doing it out of love.
Another element of The Green Ribbons that is as
relevant today as then is the phenomenon of falling in love with someone
completely out of the blue who you have never before seen that way. I have
always found this a fascinating topic. As someone who went through her teens
and twenties immediately assessing (and mostly dismissing!) every single man I
met as a possible partner, it used to strike me as odd when in books/ movies/
real life a couple who’d known each other for years suddenly realise they are
madly in love. And yet it happens so often – as though a switch is flicked on
and you see the other person in a completely different light. In Hephzibah’s
case she is drawn towards someone who appears exotic and different rather than
the person with whom she would have most in common.
Another challenge for Hephzibah in The Green
Ribbons is dealing with a sexually predatory employer. Alas, as a governess in
1900, she has no HR department to call upon and no recourse to a union to fight
her corner.
So, while drawn to modern themes, setting them
in historical periods makes them more interesting to me as a writer. It offers
constraints that I find encourage creativity. I used to work for an innovation
company and found that the best ideas often arise from having boundaries within
which to work. I also love the research that is the essential accompaniment to
writing about another era. But the essence behind the stories I tell is human
behaviour – character – and how it responds to the challenges life throws up –
whatever the era.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CLARE FLYNN
ABOUT THE BOOK
How far would she go to save her marriage? How far would he go to keep a promise?
In 1900, Hephzibah
Wildman loses both parents in a tragic accident and is forced to build a
new life for herself. Penniless and only eighteen, she must leave the
security of the Oxford college where her stepfather was Dean, and earn
her living as a governess. Her new employer, Sir Richard Egdon, a
country squire in the village of Nettlestock, has designs upon
Hephzibah. She in turn has eyes only for his son, the handsome Thomas
Egdon.
Within months of arriving at Ingleton Hall, Hephzibah is embarked upon a route with unforeseen consequences and she is compelled to make a desperate decision that will change her life and the lives of those around her.
Post a Comment