Giveaway: ‘The Chosen Queen’ by Sam Davey
Welcome to MAUDE’S BOOK CLUB!!
We've got another giveaway to share, and this time we’re giving away 5 copies of The Chosen Queen by Sam Davey!
The giveaway runs from Monday, September 22, to Tuesday, September 30th. Entries are free!!!
To enter, head over to Discord and look for the giveaway channel! Psst, did you know Members Plus and Merch Member tiers get extra entries?? — Sign up at patreon.com/maudesbookclub.
Sam Davey spends a lot of her time living in her head, which is a strange but quite comforting place to be. The rest of the time is divided between work and play. Formerly a Whitehall Civil Servant, Sam now works as Head of Transformation for the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden (no magic wands available). She lives by the sea with her husband and is one of the founders of the Hastings Book Festival and current chair of the Hastings Writers Group.
Sam's new novel, The Chosen Queen - the first book in the Pendragon Prophecies - is a feminist re-telling of the origins of the Camelot Legends, which did not start with a sword in a stone, but with a tangled web of magic, murder and deception. The story started many years ago, when Sam travelled to the distant castle of Tintagel in Cornwall, and began to think about what it would have been like to have been deceived, double-crossed and held prisoner within those walls.
Angels of Islington, Sam’s first novel, uses fantasy and black humour to explore the wide ranging philosophical and theological issues relating to free-will, dualism, the nature of divinity and the essence of humanity.
Sam studied philosophy and politics at the University of Durham and regards herself as religiously agnostic – but deeply interested in the power of belief to motivate acts of both perfect kindness and the most appalling cruelty.
Comparable to The Mists of Avalon for a new generation, The Chosen Queen is the origin story of Igraine, mother of King Arthur. Before Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, there was his mother, Igraine—the woman whose choices forged Camelot’s fate. In this fierce feminist imagining of Arthurian legend, Igraine steps out of myth and into her own story—one of magic, passion, betrayal, and the brutal price of prophecy. Though married to her beloved Duke Gorlois and mother to Morgause and Morgan, Igraine becomes the obsession of King Uther Pendragon. At a royal gathering, when the king acts on his lust, it triggers a chain of war and treachery that Merlin claims is foretold by prophecy: Igraine is fated to bear the Once and Future King. But destiny has a dark price. With Britain now at war, Igraine becomes the beating heart of Britain’s future, leading the women left behind, training daughters in the old ways, and daring to make an unthinkable choice: bow to prophecy—or claim her own power, unleashing a legacy that will echo through the ages."
Maude Garrett Interviews Sam Davey
What drew you to the story of King Arthur, and why did you want to reimagine it with a woman at the centre?
I have been fascinated by the Camelot Legends since I was a small child, and Igraine’s story in particular has always intrigued me. The more I have reflected on it, the angrier I have become that she has frequently in the past been relegated to little more than a footnote in the narrative.
Igraine is the mother of three of the major players in the Camelot Saga – Morgause, Morgan and, of course, Arthur – and to me the relationship between these four is as deep and cataclysmic as any of those told in the classic Greek tragedies. As a result of the death of Gorlois and the rape of Igraine, a blood feud is set in train, which continues to play out in the later stories, with the incestuous birth of Mordred and the vendettas that ultimately rip Camelot asunder.
I really wanted to go right to the beginning, to look at the origins of Camelot and to delve into the details of Igraine’s story. She was a force to be reckoned with – a Princess and leader in her own right, beautiful, talented and clearly a person who captivated and enchanted those who met her.
But consider how she was treated – because she refused to do as she was told; to ignore her ethics and betray her emotional integrity. She was deceived, abandoned, raped and manipulated – and to add insult to injury, in almost every other telling of the story, her tale is just a throw-away line about Uther assuming the form of Igraine’s husband Gorlois, and a baby being conceived.
Igraine’s story deserved to be told.
Why do you think people enjoy reading Historical Fiction?
I believe there are a number of reasons; the retelling of ancient tales has always fascinated authors – and none more so than the stories of Camelot and King Arthur. Writers as diverse as John Steinbeck, Kate Mosse, JRR Tolkien, Meg Cabot, and Bernard Cornwell have all found inspiration in these centuries-old stories that themselves have their roots in a fusion of ancient Celtic folk tales, Graeco-Roman legends and early British socio-political histories.
Understanding history is one way to help us understand ourselves – recognizing that, as human beings, over the years, we have some universal tales to tell. We have loved and lost, struggled for power, emerged triumphant from the vagaries of fate – and sometimes made terrible errors we can learn from.
Historical fiction allows readers to immerse themselves in another time, another place – to forget for a while their day-to-day life – but hopefully to emerge from the pages of the book with a new understanding of both themselves and the world around them.
What is something you could tell your younger self after the success of writing about what you loved as a child?
I suppose the first message would always be to remain steadfast and to believe in yourself – becoming a published author is not an easy road, and I have been Incredibly lucky to have both an agent and an editor who really believe in my work.
I would tell myself to remain true to the path I want to take – and to read widely and deeply to really develop as much knowledge as possible about the world we will through our writing.
Why do you think the Arthurian legends are always being adapted? Which themes do you think resonate with people the most?
The stories have an enduring popularity – both as novels and stories, but also as the inspiration for film and TV - and in terms of the on-going interest in the legends of Camelot, I think the time in which they are set plays a big part – we still know so very little about the so-called Dark Ages – that part of British history after the Romans left the Islands in 410 AD, and before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Certain figures in the Camelot sagas are historical and verifiable – such as Uther Pendragon’s supposed father Constantine and his putative brother, Aurelius Ambrosius- but most of the characters who populate the tales are legendary. This means that there is always an uncertainty about what may or may not be true – and I think that helps to maintain the fascination as I think we all like to believe (if only a little bit) in the possibility of magic and miracles.
The stories themselves are also remarkably engaging and exciting. They are tales of romance and chivalry, love and destiny – questing beasts, enchanted castles, magical swords and star-crossed lovers. At the heart of the stories is the age-old battle between good and evil, and the stories borrow from so many ancient Celtic tales and traditions and have been told and re-told over the centuries, bringing new interpretations and life for each generation. The fact that they have a semi-historical setting gives an added frisson of possibility, which I think enhances their enduring appeal and explains why, to this day, people are still seeking the Holy Grail!.
Do you have any future projects in mind featuring Arthurian legends, or will you branch out and try something different?
The Chosen Queen is the first in a series of books retelling the Camelot sagas from a feminist perspective, exploring the familial relationships between Igraine, her children, and her children’s children.
I have recently completed the second book, set some years in the future. Morgause is Queen of the Northern Isles and mother of four sons – Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth and Gaheris; Morgan is about to succeed Vivian as Lady of the Lake in Avalon, and following the death of Uther Pendragon, an unknown boy is about to pull a sword from a stone and plunge the kingdom yet again into civil war.
I am focusing very much on the emerging relationships between the three siblings – separated when young, raised with little or no hands-on parental affection or guidance, and driven by deep underlying enmities and ambitions. Inspired by the earliest telling of the Camelot sagas, my story will expose some of the less well-known aspects of the early years of Arthur’s reign, including the incestuous conception of Mordred, and the terrible steps that Arthur – at Merlin’s instigation – is prepared to take to secure and maintain his crown.
In addition to the Pendragon Prophecies, I am now working on the second novel in my “Angels” series – set in a dystopian parallel reality some thirty years in the future, and am also compiling an anthology of short stories.
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