The Thone of Ash - Spotlight - Blog Tour

I am delighted to be part of ths blog tour for Lissy Porter's Tudoresque fantasy THE THRONE OF ASH. It sounds so intriguing. Let's find out a little bit more about the book:

The Throne of Ash - A thrilling Tudor-esque fantasy with all the deceit, politics and Courtly romance of the Tudor era

A Queen. A Princess. And a Consort who must be chosen to ensure the future of the Throne of Ash.

The Queen's Face masks all—even the woman who wears it. None may see her without it, not even her Consort responsible for ensuring she brings forth a healthy daughter to succeed her. If he fails, being cast aside is the most favourable of outcome.

When Queen Cecily unknowingly determines on her sister's lover as her Consort, ambition, jealousy, and the demands of courtly etiquette threaten the stability of the Throne of Ash.

Princess Bess knows only too well her responsibilities towards her sister, the queen, but when one of the powerful noble Houses attempts to ensnare both sisters with one lover, there can only ever be one winner.

The Throne of Ash is a Tudor-esque fantasy in which women rule, and men are kept in the background, of little use, aside from when a Consort must be chosen. Then, court intrigues, and politics come to the fore in a deadly game of politics and etiquette that sets sister against sister.

The Throne of Ash has never been more on fire.

Purchase Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Throne-Ash-thrilling-Tudor-esque-politics-ebook/dp/B0DT42NRF3

https://www.amazon.com/Throne-Ash-thrilling-Tudor-esque-politics-ebook/dp/B0DT42NRF3

Author Bio – Lissy Porter is a pseudonym for an author who usually writes in a very different genre.

Social Media Links –

https://www.instagram.com/lissyporterauthor/

bsky.app/profile/lissyporterauthor.bsky.social 

https://www.instagram.com/lissyporterauthor/

www.throneofash.com

I  am so pleased to be able to take part in  your tour. I'm sure all your readers are fascinated to learn more about your book and why you wrote it.

Thank you for welcoming me to your blog today. 

Why did I return to the world of The Throne of Ash?

The Throne of Ash is a book I began writing in 2019, and it reached about 60,000 words and I 'felt' it wasn't working. This was a little disappointing, but at the time, I had other books I knew my readers would be interested in, so I popped it to one side and never thought I'd return to it. I've done this with a few half-finished titles. It's a wrench, but if it doesn't feel right for me, the author, then I don't believe I'll find readers for it either.

However, in late 2024, I attended a lecture by the historian Nicola Tallis about her latest book, The Young Elizabeth. I did this because I wanted to attend the lecture and for no other reason. Where I live, it's quite a treat to get a historian to come all the way north and speak to us. But, on the way home along dark country lanes, I was struck, from nowhere, by how I could 'solve' the problems with the original concept. It wouldn't be easy, and it would require a lot more writing, but I realised I needed to turn the story into a trilogy. This had always been the problem; I wanted to tell a story that was simply 'too big' for one book, so I'd failed to do the idea justice.

Not that I did anything immediately. I allowed my ideas to form a little. Then I made some notes on the original manuscript before quite gleefully, opening up a new document and copying and pasting the elements from the original story I wanted to keep for the first part of the trilogy.

This left me with about 10,000 words, so not actually that much from the original manuscript, and the majority of it would form the ending of the new story structure. And so, I set to work, returning to a story I'd not even attempted to work on for over five years. I’d not even opened the document throughout that time.

I've often found my books routinely start as a short story, perhaps forming the main character firmly in my mind, and then aren't used until much later in the book or series. I think with The Throne of Ash, this was a much more extreme example of that process. It does now mean I know where this trilogy is going. This is very rare for me. I’m a pantser by trainingJ

In the interim five years, I think I've become better at telling stories and researching (I did need some Tudor elements for my Tudor-esque fantasy). Perhaps more importantly, I can sense where these elements are needed to make a story more appealing to my readers and me. After all, I've got to spend hours writing and editing it.

When I think of the Tudors, there are a number of themes that resonate with me: the façade of the Tudor court, the underlying sexual tension that certainly infused Henry VIII's reign, and perhaps also that of Elizabeth I's, the elaborate costumes, the threat of the executioners' blade and with that the treason and treachery that was also endemic during the period. But there are also other elements: the need for an heir, and when there was no heir (as during much of Henry VIII’s reign and then Elizabeth I's later reign when everyone finally accepted she wouldn’t marry), the intrigue around who would succeed her; the wealth and power of some of the nobility; huge firework displays and the elaborate mummings and the growth of the theatre. But there was also something else that called to me: the very male-dominated society even when there were two female monarchs, and indeed, Elizabeth I's obsession with proclaiming herself as somehow in the form of a man as opposed to accepting she was female and doing all she could to empower her fellow women.

While Elizabeth I was my first historical hero, I had grown tired of the obsession with the Tudors until recalled to it through some intriguing books highlighting other aspects, and here I will mention Alison Weir’s In The Shadow of Queens because the tale of what happened to Katherine Parr's body after her death was weirdly captivating. That story also spoke a great deal to how the Tudor obsession hasn’t always prevailed in the intervening period. However, there’s so much other history to captivate us that I was still not entirely reconciled to the Tudors until the idea of turning it all on its head occurred to me. Why men ruling? Why not women ruling? And then, perhaps, a more unemotional approach to begetting heirs. And so, The Throne of Ash trilogy is winding its way to you, readers. I hope you enjoy it. But remember, it is a fantasy.