A warm welcome to author Vanessa Mulberry joining us today to talk about new release “The First Act”.
Why I set my MM romance in the Tudor period
I don’t remember when I saw my first Shakespeare. I would have been young, five or six maybe, and I’m guessing it was probably the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night. We had several of the plays on video, but that was likely the one we were plonked down in front of for a couple of hours of culture. It sticks out in my mind as the one I saw most often. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on.
As an older child, I was dragged along to several productions that proved equally meaningless, though I enjoyed the spectacle. It wasn’t until I was a sixteen and sat in The Globe itself that I finally managed to get through a play without wondering what the hell the actors were all talking about. It happened to be an all-male production of Anthony and Cleopatra. I sat on an uncomfortable bench eating some ghastly Tudor style pasty, huddled in my coat for warmth against the chill of British summer. I was, at least, glad to be out of the drizzle. And I remember thinking that this is what all the fuss was about.
Alas, and quite possibly to my parents disappointment, I did not throw myself into the study of the Bard, but it did give me an appreciation that I didn’t have before. I’ve been a casual consumer of Elizabethan theatre, history, and historical fiction ever since.
The setting felt a natural choice when it came to my first serious attempt at writing an MM historical romance novel, although I had seen only a handful of works in our genre set during this period. The Elizabethan theatre was an exceedingly homo-erotic place, in both the text and the performance of the plays. Off stage, Shakespeare wrote sonnets to his fair youth. Marlowe loved tobacco and boys. And Southwark, where the theatres were based and much of the book is set, was a veritable den of vice. My instinct was to choose a setting where they might be relatively relaxed about their attraction to one another, and it felt a good fit. Although sodomy was illegal at that time, it wasn’t a charge that was regularly brought against men unless they had committed other crimes—most notably treason. The plot my characters become involved in is far more dangerous than their relationship.
And that proved another attraction. The intrigues of the Elizabethan era are well documented, and I was keen to make one of my heroes a spy. I do like a man with a shady past and the potential for adventure. A crossover between those two worlds made sense. After all, Christopher Marlowe is said to have spied for the crown before he took up penning poetry and plays, and it is speculated that the tavern brawl which ended his life was a consequence of that.
We tend to think of English Renaissance theatre with great reverence. Some of the most enduring works in the English language came out of that short period. But it was just a place like any other. They worked at an astonishing pace, putting on numerous plays six days a week when the theatres were open, and quickly churning out new material to perform. The actors were given their cue words and only received their own lines instead of the whole script, often at the last minute. Speaking as a writer, I felt a certain amount of sympathy when I read that, and it made me fall in love with that world a little more. It felt very human, and typically British, for so many of our literary masterpieces to have been bodged together in such a fashion.
But I think my greatest attraction to the era are the colourful and liberally applied sex puns that we have come to associate with works from that time. I took great pleasure in inserting them into The First Act wherever I could.
Blurb
April 1594. William Moodie thinks he’s in love with celebrated actor, Richard Brasyer. When Brasyer’s playing company, Goldfox’s Men, comes to town, William is only too willing to leave his country life for the opportunities of the theater and a life in London. Determined to become Richard’s apprentice, William seeks to impress his mentor with his acting—and please him in bed.
Meanwhile, Richard struggles to escape his past as a spy and disentangle himself from the manipulations of his former master and ex-lover, Bennett Goldfox. Swearing off a relationship with his new apprentice proves difficult for Richard, as William uses all his youthful charms to seduce him. When Bennett’s life is threatened, Richard is lured back into the game for one final mission, and he and William travel to Cambridge to hunt down a list of traitors to the Crown.
In the midst of danger and deception, Richard and William come to truly see each other, faults and all, and realize their feelings run deeper than either expected.
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Vanessa Mulberry has been reading and writing since she learnt to read and write. She has been an MM romance reader for a decade now and took up writing the genre because she loves happy endings and, ahem, happy endings. Her hobbies include Gin and Tonic. She lives in Buckinghamshire (which is significantly less posh than it sounds) with her long-suffering husband and their adorable daughter.
You can contact Vanessa on Twitter @vanessamulberry or via email at admin@vanessamulberry.com