Iris Anthony Interview and Giveaway

 

I would like to welcome Iris Anthony to Royal Reviews.

Thank you so much for hosting me today. It’s always a pleasure to hang out with people who like books just as much as I do!

1. Tell us something about yourself, so that we can get to know you a bit better…

I’m a little older than I’d like to be, but thankfully not nearly as young as I once was! As a child, my family moved quite often and I developed a love of travel. I’ve visited five continents and lived on three. France is especially dear to my heart and I would move into a castle in a minute if someone else would take care of all the repairs and put in a really efficient heating system. (For a novelist, I’m distressingly practical most of the time.)

2. Your novel, The Ruins of Lace, is out now—congrats! Could you tell us about it?

Thank you so much! It took nearly ten years from conception to print, so it’s been quite a process. The novel looks at seventeenth century lace smuggling from the perspectives of the various participants including the man who commissions the lace to the woman who makes it to the dog who actually smuggles it across the border between Flanders and France. It’s a novel of many voices looking for redemption and hoping to somehow discover their worth. In a time and a place where fashion was to die for, unfortunately, some people actually did.

3. What inspired you to write The Ruins of Lace?

While I was researching a different book back in 2002, I ran across a mention of lace smuggling in seventeenth-century Europe and it intrigued me. It seemed like such a strange thing to smuggle. And when I discovered over 40,000 dogs were killed during a fifteen-year period as they tried to smuggle lace, I knew I had to write about it. I wanted to know why society gave lace such value that it was allowed to exact such a horrible price.

4. How much research went into this novel?

Too much and not enough! There’s always one more book, or one more article, or one more mention that can be followed up. Since the time I began researching this book, more resources have become available and I’ve come across even more relevant materials. But as fascinating as lace has been, I have to say that I’m quite content to leave it for the moment and concentrate, for a while, on something else.

5. What can readers expect next?

Iris Anthony readers can expect another novel in 2014. I’m hard at work this fall researching so I can submit a manuscript next spring. It will be another look at how people interact with an object. So many times, in material cultures like ours, the things upon which we place great importance tend toward the bizarre.

6. Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring authors?

Stop thinking about it, stop talking and about it and just start writing it! So much in this profession is learned by doing. And it doesn’t have to come out perfectly the first time--that’s what drafts are for. You can’t revise if you don’t have anything written and revision is where the story really starts to come alive.

You can visit the author’s website HERE

Lace is a thing like hope.
It is beauty; it is grace.
It was never meant to destroy so many lives .

The mad passion for forbidden lace has infiltrated France,
pulling soldier and courtier alike into its web. For those who want the best, Flemish lace is the only choice, an exquisite perfection of thread and air. For those who want something they don’t have, Flemish lace can buy almost anything––or anyone.

For Lisette, lace begins her downfall, and the only way to atone for her sins is to outwit the noble who now demands the impossible. To fail means certain destruction. But for Katharina, lace is her salvation. It is who she is; it is what she does. If she cannot make this stunning tempest of threads, a dreaded fate awaits.

The most lucrative contraband in Europe, with its intricate patterns and ephemeral hope, threatens to cost them everything. Lace may be the deliverance for which they all pray...or it may bring the ruin and imprisonment they all fear. (taken from the author’s website)

I have 1 copy to giveaway.

Giveaway is International

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Giveaway ends: October 30

giveaway copy purchased by me.

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