Earlier this year, Stella Riley and Alex Wyndham visited us here at AudioGals to talk about their collaboration on Ms. Riley’s Rockliffe series of Georgian-era romances. Each has garnered high praise here and from listeners, with Ms. Riley’s intelligent storytelling and Mr. Wyndham’s superbly realised narrations often pointed to as outstanding examples of both.
In the introduction to that interview, I mentioned that I’ve been a fan of the author’s for more than thirty years, ever since I read A Splendid Defiance back in 1986. A few years back, Ms. Riley revised and republished what is still one of my all-time favourite romances, and earlier this year, made the decision to bring it to audio, and I asked her if she’d tell us a little more about it. In addition, we are giving away three copies of the upcoming audiobook – submit the form at the bottom of the post for a chance to win!
Caz
FOR KING AND PARLIAMENT
For two years, England has been in the grip of Civil War. In Banbury, Oxfordshire, the Cavaliers hold the Castle, the Roundheads want it back and the town is full of zealous Puritans. Consequently, the gulf between Captain Justin Ambrose and shopkeeper’s sister, Abigail Radford, ought to be unbridgeable. The key to both the fate of the Castle and that of Justin and Abigail lies in defiance … but will it be enough?
Whether they know a great deal about it or not, most people have a mental image of the English Civil War. It might be dashing Cavaliers careering about the countryside on horseback or grim-faced Roundhead soldiers in armour or battlefields wreathed in the smoke from cannon-fire. The 1640s were a dramatic, picturesque period containing hundreds of true stories of which the backdrop to A Splendid Defiance is just one.
This book, like others I have written set in the same period, is different to my Rockliffe series in many respects. Those novels are light-hearted romances with a period feel but no great weight of history. The world is one of clothes, food and manners where everyone moves in the upper levels of society and no one works for a living. I write them for fun and in the hope that readers/listeners find them entertaining. My Civil War stories are grounded much more firmly in the real world of the seventeenth century; and A Splendid Defiance is more than a mere romance. It is a powerful love story of two people divided by a war but for which they would never have met; and it tells the remarkable tale of one English castle and the men who defended it.
The English Civil War was basically a power-struggle between the King who believed he had a right to rule as he saw fit and the Parliament, which said that he didn’t. The result was a vast array of violent disagreement. But another quarrel had been rumbling away for far longer … a quarrel about religion.
Although the Protestant faith had been established during the reign of Henry the Eighth, many churches and their services still resembled the old Catholic ways – and this grew increasingly unpopular, particularly amongst a group who came to be known as Puritans.
No matter which side of the Atlantic you live, you’ll be familiar with the story of the Pilgrim Fathers. Those intrepid souls, brave enough to sail for the New World in search of freedom to worship as they chose. The voyage of the Mayflower was the first – and is therefore the most famous – of many such journeys. Less well known today, is the story of a small market town in Oxfordshire which, even before the Mayflower set sail in 1603, was already a by-word for religious fervour – Banbury.
The Cavaliers hold the Castle, the Roundheads want it back and the town is full of zealous Puritans.
Naturally, these Puritan townsfolk supported Parliament’s cause rather than that of the King and it isn’t hard to imagine how they viewed the Cavaliers living on their doorstep. In Banbury, the war wasn’t just Roundhead versus Cavalier – it was also Town versus Castle.
Many of the characters in A Splendid Defiance were real people, amongst whom the only well-known name is that of Rupert of the Rhine, a frequent visitor to the Castle. It’s his portrait on the cover, by the way – a little-known one, owned by Banbury Town Council.
Other characters were men whose names history has largely forgotten; some of the three hundred and twenty Cavalier soldiers who held Banbury Castle against a besieging force of three and a half thousand for fourteen weeks. But my hero, Justin Ambrose – a gentleman by birth and a professional soldier by necessity – is fictional. So, too, is Abigail Radford, younger sister of a dour, fanatical Puritan. The gulf between these two is all-encompassing; social class, religion, a long and bloody siege … and, not least, the blazing mutual dislike flowing between Justin and Abigail’s brother, Jonas.
Yet at some point during their third meeting, this is how Abigail – who admits to being afraid of her brother – describes Captain Ambrose.
This man she barely knew … this impatient and often irascible man, who cursed and blasphemed with alarming frequency, who said things he shouldn’t, saw more than he should and laughed when she least expected it … this man who embodied everything she had been reared to abhor … was completely trustworthy.
It’s an accurate description. Justin Ambrose is not like Amberley or Rockliffe or Sarre, even though he was bred in circumstances not dissimilar to theirs – a story of its own which unfolds later in the book. Although he has both charm and good manners, he rarely displays either. Why, then, is he one of my best-loved heroes? I can’t account for this except to say he’s possibly my own personal favourite.
A Splendid Defiance being so different from the Rockliffe series, I thought long and hard about whether or not to have it transformed into audio but eventually came to the conclusion that, in the skilled hands (and voice) of Alex Wyndham it deserved the chance to reach a new audience.
Oh … and my husband has been asking for it ever since he heard Alex read The Mésalliance.
Stella Riley, December 2016
THE GIVEAWAY is now closed – thank you!
Entry is simple. We are giving away three (3) Audible downloads of the audiobook A Splendid Defiance by Stella Riley, narrated by Alex Wyndham. Just complete the easy entry form below this post by midnight US Central Time Monday, December 19, 2016, for a chance to win. No comments are necessary to enter although we’d love to hear your thoughts in our discussion area. You may only enter once – anyone entering more than once will be disqualified. We’ll contact the three winners by email on Tuesday, December 20th, so watch your email as we must have acknowledgement of your win within 48 hours. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll select another winner.
Fine print: The terms and conditions are listed above. There are no entry fees, no purchase is necessary, and this giveaway is void where prohibited by law! The value of the prize is one Audible credit.
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I am a huge audible girl , and listen to to everything from Russian history, rob lowes biography , a funny fiction. This would be a complete new genre for me and I am so interested in this audible. Thank you for the chance
Somewhere in one of my boxes of “books too good to get rid of” is a paperback copy of A Splendid Defiance. I already have the digital copy in my Kindle app and am anxious to hear the audiobook. Thanks for this splendid giveaway! I love this book!
I am jealous! My paperback copy somehow disappeared years ago, so I was bereft until Ms. Riley began digitally republishing her backlist :) Good luck in the giveaway – the audiobook is a real treat for the ears.