Author Interview with Susan Higginbotham

by Jerelyn (I-F-Letty)

I am always on the lookout for new authors in the historical fiction genre. I stumbled upon Susan Higginbotham a few years ago and immediately ordered her first two novels that were self- published The Traitor’s Wife, and Hugh and Bess: A Love Story.  Since that time Ms. Higginbotham has signed with a mainstream publisher, who picked up Traitor’s Wife as well as Hugh and Bess, while publishing her third novel A Stolen Crown, soon followed by The Queen of Last Hopes.

 I loved her book, The Traitor’s Wife. It is about a little known, but very important woman of her time, Eleanor De Clare. She was the grand-daughter of Edward I and niece to King Edward II.  As is often the case with women in the medieval time period, even if they are well known in their own time, the historical chroniclers where more apt to mention a man’s horse or hound than his wife.

Ms. Higginbotham is a lawyer by trade, and though I don’t know if she is a defense attorney she should be.  Her work tells the stories of those little remembered or those vilified by history.  She looks for the threads of truth and weaves a story from those threads.  I don’t always agree with her conclusions but she gives a refreshingly honest fictional portrayal of real people while sticking resolutely to the known historical facts. 

Ms Higginbotham is a PBS member and I about fell out of my chair one day after printing out a mailing label for a book from my shelf addressed to her.  I am happy to welcome Susan to the PBS blog.

Jerelyn: I want to thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the PBS blog.  Will you tell us a little about yourself?

Susan:  I’ve been writing since I was in grade school. I wrote several contemporary-set novels during my twenties, one of which came close to selling, the others of which are deservedly buried in my garage somewhere. After a hiatus from writing in my thirties when I went to law school and had a solo practice, I found myself becoming drawn to historical fiction, both as a reader and as a writer. I self-published my first two novels, and shortly after I published Hugh and Bess, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Sourcebooks offering to buy The Traitor’s Wife.

I have a full-time job working for a legal publisher, so most of my writing is done in the evening when the family’s in bed. I live with my husband and my son, who is autistic, and I have a daughter who just began college. We also have three cats, all of the tabby variety, and a Cairn Terrier, Boswell.   He’s my writing buddy and is always pretty close to my computer.

Jerelyn: You went it alone at first.  Was it frustration that led you to self-publish?

Susan: No, I never tried querying The Traitor’s Wife to agents or publishers. The main reason I chose to self-publish was impatience. I thought Eleanor had a great story, so great that I was shocked that no one had written a novel about her previously, and I wanted to get it into print before a better-known author beat me to it. I happened to read an article about self-publishing as I was finishing The Traitor’s Wife, and that made me decide to take the chance and just see what happened.

I have always wondered about historical fiction writers.  Were you an expert in this time period?  Or did the writing lead to your expertise?

Susan: I knew almost nothing about medieval history before writing The Traitor’s Wife. A chance re-reading of Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward the Second piqued my interest in Edward II, and I began reading everything I could about him. That led to me deciding that I wanted to write about Eleanor. Since she’s a relatively obscure figure,  to find out more about her own story, I had to start delving into primary sources I’d never heard of—inquisitions post mortem, papal registers, and so forth. It was a crash course on how to research medieval history.

Jerelyn: What drew you to the waning Plantagenet era, and the rise of the Tudor period?

There’s just so much material for a novelist from the late medieval and Tudor periods. There are the mysteries, such as the disappearance of Edward IV’s sons. There are the changes in fortune, some of which occurred almost overnight, that brought some families to ruin and other families to riches and fame. There are those who remained loyal to a cause even to the point of sacrificing their own lives, and there are those who proved shockingly disloyal. There’s love, greed, sex, and civil war. Of course, these aren’t unique to the late medieval and Tudor periods, but for some reason, these are the periods that I’m drawn to, much more so than earlier and later periods.

Jerelyn: In writing The Traitor’s Wife what drew you to Eleanor?  Will you tell us about her?

Susan: When I became interested in Edward II’s story, I also became particularly interested in that of his second favorite, Hugh le Despenser the younger. At some early point in my reading, I discovered that Hugh’s widow, Eleanor, had married the man who captured her husband. That got me curious, and I started to find out as much as I could about Eleanor. When I did, I found that her life was ready-made for a novel. Daughter to a powerful earl and granddaughter to Edward I, Eleanor de Clare became a bride at age thirteen. She was widowed twenty years later when her hated husband was hung, drawn, beheaded, and quartered at the instigation of Edward II’s estranged queen, Isabella. She was twice a prisoner in the Tower of London. Her second husband was the man who had captured her first husband and who had besieged the castle held by her eldest son. She was accused of the theft of the king’s jewels–and she was likely guilty.  She lost her lands, regained them, lost them again, and regained them again. For several years she was the subject of a dispute in which two men each claimed to be her husband. There were even hints that she had a sexual relationship with her uncle, Edward II, to whom she was certainly very close, much more so than his other nieces.

Jerelyn: Edward II was truly the author of his own destruction, yet your portrayal of him is in my opinion, very fair and balanced.  Did you set out to do this?

Susan: Yes, I did. Although he wasn’t a very good king, I found him very likable as a man. He was a loyal friend, with a sense of humor, and he had the common touch—one of the criticisms of him was that he enjoyed pastimes that were considered unkingly, such as rowing, swimming, and thatching roofs. I think he was born in the wrong time.

Jerelyn: More often than not Edward and Hugh’s relationship is portrayed in such a salacious manner, that it has become almost farcical.  I mean it seems like people are pushing their own agendas.  Is this another reason you wrote the book?

Susan: Not really, to be honest—I really just wanted to tell the story from the point of view of people I had come to like, especially Eleanor and Edward. Edward’s usually portrayed as a pathetic weakling in historical fiction, and Eleanor, when she appears, is usually either a shrew or a ninny, depending on the novel. I wanted to do better for them.

Jerelyn: Hugh and Bess is a continuation of the Despenser story.  It is a favorite of mine.  What compelled you to write this?  BTW I cried.

Susan: I’m glad the story moved you! Like many novelists, I was at a loss to figure out a subject for my second novel, and I finally decided that I wanted to continue the story of Hugh and Eleanor’s son, also named Hugh, from The Traitor’s Wife. He was one of my favorite characters from that novel. In actuality, we really don’t know much about his personality, but we do know that he managed to be on good terms with many of his father’s enemies and that he worked his way back into Edward III’s favor through his military service when a lesser man might have just sulked or schemed. We also know that his widow chose to be buried beside him in Tewkesbury Abbey, although their marriage was childless, and that she erected a beautiful tomb for the two of them, which can still be seen today.

Jerelyn: In The Stolen Crown, you jump ahead to the War of the Roses.  Again it seems you want to bring another point of view.  Will you tell us about the book?

Susan: It tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville’s youngest sister, Katherine, and that of her husband, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham, of course, is notorious for first helping Richard III to the throne and then rebelling against him, for reasons that are still largely a mystery. He is also a suspect in the disappearance of Edward IV’s sons, the famous Princes in the Tower. I’m unusual among historical novelists in that I’m not an admirer of Richard III, and the novel reflects that, though I do find him fascinating and I tried to be balanced in my portrayal of him.

Jerelyn: Also why, did you choose to tell it from Katherine and Henry the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham’s view point?

Susan: I wanted to write about this era, but didn’t want to tell the story through the eyes of Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III, or Anne Neville, all of who have been the main characters in many historical novels. Finally, I hit upon using Katherine as the central character. She had ties to most of the major players in the 1470’s and 1480’s, either through her own family or through her marriage, and she also had the merit of surviving into the Tudor era. After I wrote a couple of chapters from her perspective, I found that her husband wanted his say as well. That worked out very well, because it brought Richard III into the novel in a way that Katherine by herself couldn’t have done.

Jerelyn: In your latest book The Queen of Last Hopes, you tell the story of a much maligned Queen Margaret and the tragic Henry VI.  Again you seem to be acting as a champion offering another side to the story.  Will you tell us about it?

Susan: When I was researching The Stolen Crown, I encountered Margaret’s story, and I came to admire her deeply. She fought for the rights of her husband and her son until the very last, and was unwavering in her loyalty to these men. Modern novelists have generally cast Margaret in a bad light, but do they really think a queen of her time should have sat back and sewn tapestries while her son was being disinherited? She came very close to succeeding in her cause, and had she done so, she might be remembered today as a heroically devoted wife and mother instead of as vengeful she-wolf.

Jerelyn: I wonder if you have an opinion on Henry VI’s madness.

Susan: I don’t think anyone’s ever figured out precisely what condition he had, or what made him suddenly recover after over a year of being completely unresponsive to those around him. Once he recovered, he seems to have been quite fragile, but he doesn’t seem to have ever completely lost his wits again. He was able to survive as a fugitive for over a year after the battle of Hexham, and he was able to enforce his wishes as to things that really mattered to him, like the “Loveday” reconciliation of the warring factions. Some of the stories about his mental condition are quite dubious, such as the one claiming that he was found singing and laughing under a tree after the second battle of St. Albans—the two sources that describe him as doing this are by foreigners who didn’t witness the battle, whereas the English sources, including ones hostile to Henry’s cause, don’t indicate that he was acting irrationally during or after the battle.

Jerelyn: I get the distinct impression had you been alive then you would have been on the side of Lancaster.  Is this a fair statement?

Susan: I would have probably been among those who, like the Woodville family, switched their allegiances to the House of York after the Battle of Towton. Sadly, I doubt I would have been able to sacrifice everything to a cause as did Henry VI and Margaret’s most dogged supporters.

It is important to remember, though, that when Richard III seized power in 1483, he alienated many men who had long been loyal to Edward IV and the Yorkist cause—indeed, one of his first victims, Thomas Vaughan, had served Richard’s own father, the Duke of York. It was Richard III’s action of taking his nephew off the throne that gave rise to the strange alliance of disaffected Yorkists and exiled Lancastrians that put Henry Tudor on the throne in 1485. So by then, it wasn’t really a situation of Lancaster versus York, but of Richard’s supporters against his enemies.

Jerelyn: Would you like to share your personal gripes about the current Ricardian/Yorkist and Lancastrian portrayals in novels?

Susan: I find a lot of black-or-white characterization and stereotypes in novels from this period. It’s been the fashion for decades in historical fiction to treat Richard III favorably, which is fine, but too many novelists turn him into an impossibly saintly figure, one whom Richard himself probably wouldn’t recognize. Anne, his queen, is quite often treated as a pathetic, frail pawn of her rabidly ambitious father; Edward of Lancaster is usually depicted as a budding psychotic; Edward IV is shown as a drunken, lazy playboy, and so on and so on. I think it’s a great disservice to these people to view them in such simplistic terms.

One of the novels from this period that I genuinely enjoyed was the late Reay Tannahill’s The Seventh Son. She viewed Richard III much more favorably than I do, but her Richard was a three-dimensional one, who could be ruthless and opportunistic as well as being a loyal husband and friend. Her Anne was quite good as well; a young woman with a backbone and with a brain.

Jerelyn: The Making of a Queen is your new novel. It has just become available for pre-order. Can you tell us what is it about?

Susan: It’s now known as Her Highness, the Traitor. It’s about Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, and Jane Dudley, the Duchess of Northumberland, who were the mother and the mother-in-law of Lady Jane Grey. Both women, especially Frances, have been treated negatively by most historical novelists, and I’m looking forward to having readers see a new perspective on them and on Jane Grey herself.

Jerelyn: What are you working on now?

Susan: My current project is about Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, who was Henry VIII’s niece and the mother of Lord Darnley, the ill-fated husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was Margaret’s grandson, James VI of Scotland, who as James I became the first Stuart king of England. Margaret’s romantic entanglements earned her a stay in the Tower during the reign of Henry VIII, and her political meddling earned her more imprisonments during the reign of her cousin Elizabeth I.

Jerelyn: You are a member at PBS.  What are your views on used books sites?  Do they help or hurt authors in your opinion?

Susan: I love used book sites. I buy probably about three-quarters of my own books used—many because they are out of print, many because they’re academic books that I simply couldn’t afford to buy new. Others I buy simply because I want to try an author but don’t want to pay full price for a book I may not like.

I know some authors dislike it when readers buy their books used instead of new, but speaking as a reader, if I buy a used copy of an author’s book and like it, I’m likely to buy the author’s next book new when it’s published. As an author, I’d much rather someone go to the library or a used book site to get my books than not read them at all.

Jerelyn: What are your views on social media?  In particular how they affect your ability to market your work?

Susan: Social media has given authors more opportunities to market their books than they ever had before, which is exciting—and very rewarding too, since it gives authors a chance to meet readers in ways they never could before. The drawback, of course, is that it also gives authors the opportunity to embarrass themselves in ways that they never did before, such as in reacting online to bad reviews, and to share information that many readers would prefer not to know, such as their marital problems or their political views. Of course, the biggest danger of social media is that it’s a huge distraction from writing. Its way too easy to go to Facebook “just to check what’s going on” when one is struggling with a difficult chapter.

Jerelyn: I know you read a lot of historical fiction, and straight history.  Do you have a guilty pleasure author?

Susan: I enjoy Jean Plaidy’s novels and have collected about 75 percent of them, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering family, who has to put up with bookshelves sprouting all over the house. Plaidy violates one of the iron-clad rules of historical fiction—Thou Shalt Show, Not Tell—with abandon, and because some of the secondary sources she relied upon have been superseded, her depictions of some characters and events have become dated. But she did write about a lot of historical characters who have been neglected by other authors, such as the Georgian rulers, and she usually avoids the trap of dividing her characters into good guys and bad guys.

Jerelyn: I would like to thank Susan for taking the time to answer our questions.  To learn more about Susan you can visit her website at http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/ or follow her on Face Book. 

Susan Higginbotham’s Books

The Traitor’s Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II

Hugh and Bess: A Love Story

The Stolen Crown

The Queen of Last Hopes

Susan has also kindly offered a copy of her novel Queen of Last Hopes to a member who comments here on the PBS Blog.  A winner will be chosen at random. Good Luck!

Tags: Authors, Book Reviews, Book Suggestions

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