A Personal Fateful Encounter

September 1997. I’ve been in England for four hours, and I am jetlag incarnate. It’s my program’s international volunteer welcome conference. Most of the Americans already know each other from a pre-departure orientation I missed, and most of the un-Americans don’t arrive until tomorrow.

It’s lunchtime, and the food, though familiar, tastes a bit odd. I hear a loud voice pontificating at the next table and look over.

Dark-haired guy, premature receding hairline, goatee, burly, in a Colorado sweatshirt. Not bad looking, but not the lithe, wiry type I fancy, either. I stereotype him by his voice, looks, and sartorial choices:

Frat boy. Boring. Not my type.

Two hours later I’m in love with him.

Heh. Nice.

Musings on Cruel Sister.

The story for this iis sharpening and focusing and suddenly becoming very interesting, in terms of research. Also? It's made a hard left from where I began with the idea.

If I was to rough out a synopsis right now, it would read something like this:

When Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes gets a call from her older brother Stephen, a Hong Kong-based businessman, she's surprised but delighted to learn that he's coming back to England with his newly-married wife Tamsin, and settling in London. It seems that he and Tamsin are planning to make use of a prime piece of riverfront property Stephen's owned for years, on the Isle of Dogs in northeast London, to build Tamsin's dream house: a reproduction Elizabethan manor house, using period materials. Since Penny's longtime companion, traditional musician Ringan Laine, is an expert on period property, Ringan volunteers his services as an advisor.

They learn, before ever visiting the empty piece of land, that the ground is haunted by a young bomb disposal engineer, killed on the site in 1947. Their joint fear - that Penny's sensitivity to the unseen world will be triggered by song - while still present, is tempered by the knowledge that this ghost, at least, has no connection to music.

But this time, it's Ringan himself, while working with architects and workmen on the site, who begins to hear and see things he can't explain. A flash of hounds, voices no one else hears, and finally, glimpses of people in the dress of the 16th century, bring it home to him that the ghost they all thought they were seeing is not what haunts this ground.

The true story takes Penny and Ringan across the river to Greenwich, to a royal wedding nearly five centuries ago, in search of a hidden tragedy, to the Bodleian library in Oxford, and, in the end, to the hidden letters of a confidant of Anne of Cleves."

Feedback? Theme seem clear?

Anne of Cleves is the one Henry took one look at and said, "Nope, not her," isn't she? Something about the official portrait of her being overly flattering?

Very clear. Nicely written.

I wonder about your last sentence, though--do you want to end on a reference to Anne of Cleves? I only ask because I don't think most people will instantly know that name. Is it possible to work in a reference to Henry VIII?

connie, yup - Holbein flattered her a little too much, and neglected to paint in extensive pox scars. But Henry apparently quite liked her - just didn't want her, luckily for her, since she lived to a ripe old age.

Kristin, I keep forgetting, that "recite the names of Henry's wives in chronological order" was a school exercise where I grew up, not where most Americans grow up. You're quite right - I can easily change that last line to read something like "...to the hidden letters of a confidant of Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII."

But this is a very rough synopsis. I'm still playing, not only with the synopsis, but with the idea.

I'm just loving Ringan - who resents the entire thing so much, and is always so scared for Penny's sake - being the vulnerable one.

Well the idea rocks. I can't wait to read it.

t taps foot

t looks at watch

Deb's going to beam the entire book to your watch? NEAT!

I thought it was a marriage by proxy before Anne even got to England.

I thought it was a marriage by proxy before Anne even got to England.

It was. But the ceremony - the official state wedding party - would have gone on for some time, even though Henry said, no way am I shagging this one. And the wedding party - planned well in advance - would have included two things that led to the tragedy of the song: visits from afar (in this instance, some Scots or border country nobles, I'm thinking the Percys or close approximation), and hunting trips on the Isle of Dogs.

Oh, my. Must brush up on Tudors. I'm more familiar with them as an old Jacobean/Elizabethan drama and lit second-major than as a historian; they begin just after my particular era of expertise ends.

Le sigh. I suppose I can't put all the stories between 1066 and the Battle of Bosworth...

Sounds fascinating to me.