New Medieval Coming!

What's that, you say, a new release from Kris?? With an Irish hero? And sexytimes??


That's a big "yes!"


THE KING'S OUTLAW is up for pre-order as we speak.  It's a long novella, first in my new series of über-sexy, adventure-laden historical romances, CONQUERORS AND OUTLAWS.


You know you want those bad medieval boys. :)


THE KING'S OUTLAW will be available initially as part of a Celtic Heroes anthology, CAPTURED BY A CELTIC WARRIOR, with three fabulous historical romance authors, Jennifer Haymore, Eliza Knight, and Vonda Sinclair.


Four fierce warriors.  Four women in peril.  One legendary dagger steeped in the blood and treachery of kings.  What more is there??


The stories span hundreds of years (mine kicks things off during King Richard's reign, 1193), all have a 'captive' trope, and all feature Gaelic heroes. Three Scotsmen and one lone Irishman, but oh, what an Irishman...


It's up for pre-order now, at a special price of only 99 cents! Here are some links:

Amazon (Kindle & print)

iBooks/iTunes

Kobo
B&N

I promise to bring you more updates as we go. And in the meantime....here's the yummy cover!  What do you think??

Is she more a Scolastica or a Wymarka?

I've talked about names before, and how important they are for a writer, sometimes shaping the entire story, and definitely shaping the character's arc.  Who is this hero and what overriding traits does he have?  What's going to be this heroine's biggest test and her largest vulnerability?

Not sure why, but the right names helps find all that out.

Oh, the crazy human psyche.

I love choosing medieval names.  Well, I mean, there are also a lot of repeats in the name department.   I mean, a lot.  Of repeats.  Like in this paragraph.  Whether Norman or English or French, you find the same names repeated in the historical documents.  Alice, Agnes, Joan, Beatrice.  John, Richard, Geoffrey, Peter.   Over and over and over again.  And all those folks, without surnames.  :shakes head:

But there are also a lot of great names.  Evocative names.  Illustrative names.  Juicy, oh-there-has-to-be-a-story-there names.

Men's names, like Adelard, Basewin, Tancred, Serle and Saer (hero coming).  Percival, Ives, and Everard.  And oh my, the Irish names.  Aedh, Faolán, Lúcás, Siadhal.  It's sounds like a poem to me.

And the women's names.  Scolastica, Petronilla, Dyonisia, Wymarka, and Diamanda.  And the Irish: Áine, Sorcha, and Dubh Essa (which looks frightening, but sounds /Dove-essa/).

In my own books, I've loved some names so much I would hug them if they weren't, you know, a name.  i.e. breath, i.e. difficult to hug. 


Finian O'Melaghlin (IRISH WARRIOR), yes, it is a mouthful, but he's proud of his name, and Senna de Valery, the woman who freed him from prison, and whose mother loved color so much she named her daughter one, then left her. 



Eva (DEFIANT), who had no last name, and her hero Jamie Lost, whose name was given to him by the men who loved him and the ones who used him.


Sophia Darnley's (DECEPTION) first name was something entirely different in early drafts of the story, but Kier kept calling her "Sophie," so I had to change her name.  Those heroes...nothing but trouble.


I love when a name fits!   And not just in my romances. 

Bilbo Baggins is about the most perfect, fitting character name ever.   As is Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple.   And Hannibal Lecter. 

What character names 

have YOU loved? 

Name-Catching

Finding a character's 'true' name can be the simpliest thing in writing, or one of the most difficult. In either case, though, for me, doing so is like water: essential.

It's different if I'm reading.  In that case, names matter, but I can also skim over them if they don't work for me.   I'm an inveterate chunk-reader anyway, so I can  hum through any name that feels like a misfit, or that reminds me of the kid in 3rd grade who used to make truck sounds as he went through the cafeteria line every day, spraying the kids on either side of him with the effluvia of his sputtering. (Note: not sexy.)

But as a writer, I'm a lot less flexible on the name thing.   Names matter.   A lot.

It's kind of crazy, but for me, names let me truly 'see' the character.  They're a bit like clothes: they reveal truths about a person, from the fit to the style.  But they not only reveal; they create. 

Names 'find' characters, and then force them to be true to that name.

I've had to use 'placeholder' names for months on end because no name felt right.   Unfortunately, no name = I struggle to find the story, flailing through hundreds of pointless pages trying to find the story and the arc for this wrongly-named soul.  

Names can be pesky things, and catching the right one can be like trying to catch a butterfly in a hurricane.  So sad, for the story, for the characters, for any deadlines I had planned.  


But the moment I 'find' the name, I also find the story.   It's as if the story shakes itself out, like a dog, and the entire character arc appears.
I'm guessing I struggle with names when I haven't 'found' the story yet.  This creates a vicious, if masochistically pleasing, circle.  All I need to do is find the story, and I'll find the name, and vice versa, which is at once hopeful (the story's out there somewhere, right??) and hopeless (I'll never find it.)

A peek into the neurotic freefall of one writer's mind.

How much do character names matter to you?

Do you have any books that you've loved, but couldn't stand the hero/heroine names? 

Removing social media icons from website

Hey kids, this is just a heads up that I'll be removing the social media icons from my website.

While this blog is hosted by Blogger for now (i.e. Google) and there's not much I can do about their tracking, I've grown tired of the incessant tracking and data collection done by organizations & social media, in particular, Facebook.

Even more particularly, a Belgian privacy group had found the Facebook is placing trackers & long-term (i.e. 2 years!) cookies on every user whenever they visit a site that has a FB 'like' button on it. Even if they're not logged in, even if they're not Facebook users.

Eep.  That's just not acceptable to me, that by visiting my site, I'm basically consigning readers to be tracked by Facebook. 

So I'll be taking their 'like/follow' buttons off the website.  You can still find me there, and here's how!

Facebook: 

"Like' page: https://www.facebook.com/KrisKennedyBooks

"Friend' page: https://www.facebook.com/kris.author

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/KrisKennedy

And while I'm at it, I'll remind you to be sure to sign up for the newsletter!  

http://eepurl.com/krTUb

(If you're interested in privacy, there are loads of apps/addons/extentions for every browser that will let you block &/or stop scripts and cookies on websites. Just search your browser's extensions for 'privacy.' Some examples: BetterPrivacy, NoScript (pretty vigorous, so it may take a little time to learn what you want to allow/keep blocking, but it's highly effective), Ghostery, Blur, DisableWebRTC)

Tourney!

Okay, who loves a tourney?  I mean, besides me.

Pennants fluttering off the host's castle ramparts, villagers and nobles mingling in the busy grounds all around, merchants hawking their wares, performers juggling and wrestling.  While up in the lists, knights in shining armour preen and perform for ladies in the stands, who bestow their favors--a sleeve, a scrap of silk, and a smile--on their favorites. 




Originally, though, tournaments didn't much resemble our romantic notion of them.  The 'joust'--two men squaring off and taking a run at each other with lances--yeah, that was a latter addition, and even when the joust came to be part of the tourney, it was a prelude to the main event, the mêlée, a pitched battle with, well, pretty much no rules. 

Occasionally the type of weaponry was predetermined for the mêlée, but other than that, it was basically no-holds-barred fighting.  Lords came with their retinues, often comprised largely of men hired for the sole purpose of helping Lord Such-and-So kick Lord Whos-And-Whats knightly arse.  They came to fight, and to win. 

Oh, and to make a lot of money.  

The big money didn't come from official prizes, though, although those could be quite rich.  But the real prize was...ransom.

First came the cavalry rush with lowered lances, which quickly devolved into hand-to-hand combat, on foot, between the two opposing sides.  Death happened, although combatants were not (usually) killed intentionally.   Why kill a guy, when you can bankrupt him, and enrich yourself in the process?  Capture was a much better business plan. 

The loser had to 'yield,' then he and the victor agreed to the terms of the surrender.  Usually horse & armour were taken, and a price agreed-upon to buy them back.  Remember these horses were worth more money than a villager could make in a dozen lifetimes.  The same for armour.  Terms of the agreement were set down in a contract (yes, they signed a contract, right there on the battlefield, in a section called the 'refuge'.  Recognize it?? Cool, huh?) It was all very official and well-run. 

Except when it wasn't.

Tourneys were a dicey proposition for kings and counts. On one hand, tourneys were good training for war, could be useful for raising money, and for channeling the aggressive tendencies of all those young, male, armed citizens, who were so necessary in times of war, and so...unpredictable at all other times.

But they also wrecked destruction on the countryside and any unlucky villagers caught in the crossfire as the battle raged across the land, including farmland (!!)  Often, two villages were designated as the outer boundaries of the battleground, essentially assuring that armed knights in the heat of battle were going to come roaring through the town and across their tended fields.  Note: No village is on record as ever having requested such a dubious privilege. 

The larger concern for a medieval king was this: tourneys were a breeding ground for petty feuds, vengeance, and, at the top of any medieval lord's mind, rebellion.  

Perfect for romance fiction!  I can feel my brain cells firing up, ready to play with the ceremony and drama of a medieval tournament.  I see a dark-haired, hard-hearted hero, and the conceited, intelligent, alluring daughter of his worst enemy....  

Have you read any books with great tourney scenes??  Spill!

Not Medieval but...Castle!

It's not a medieval castle, but it's got medieval in it. 

While I was wasting time online, I ran into this gorgeous tidbit:

Château de Gudanes, in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, built in the mid-18th century, was contructed on the site on a 13th century fortress.  Those medieval towers are within the Château today. 

The castle fell into disuse and survived destruction during the French Revolution. 






In the 1990's, an investment company bought it, planning to turn it into luxury apartments, but were denied permits (Go France!) 




Again it fell into disuse, until an Australian couple bought it and are now renovating it, very publicly. They have a website, blog, and run workshops.

What part of the restoration would you start with?  I'd be uncovering those medieval towers!

Interestingly, this region of France plays into my current work-in-progress.  I keep running into that, while I'm wasting time online.  I think I should take it as a hint and get back to writing.

More pictures:
Wimp
Château de Gudanes site