Interview and Giveaway with Delilah author India Edghill

Scandalous Women is pleased to welcome India Edghill to the blog to talk about her new book Delilah which will be released by St. Martin's Press on November 24th.

Here's a quick teaser:

Given to the temple of Atargatis as a child, Delilah is raised to be a priestess to the Five Cities that rule Canaan. With her beloved friend Aylah, Delilah grows up under the watchful eyes of high priestess Derceto, who sees the devout young priestesses as valuable playing pieces in her political schemes.



In the hills of Canaan, the Israelites chafe under the rule of the Five Cities, and choose Samson to lead them to victory. A reluctant warrior, Samson is a man of great heart who prefers peace to war. But fearing a rebellion, those who rule the Five Cities will do anything to capture Samson. When Samson catches a glimpse of Delilah, he is ready to risk his freedom to marry her, and Derceto seizes the chance to have Samson at her mercy. The Temple's intrigues against Samson force Aylah and Delilah apart, lead Delilah to question her own heart, and change her future forever.

A glorious and inventive retelling of an ancient story, Delilah is a soaring tale of political turmoil, searing betrayal, passionate friendship, and forbidden love.

Welcome to Scandalous Women India! You've written QUEENMAKER, about King David's queen, Michal; WISDOM'S DAUGHTER, about King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and now, in your latest novel, DELILAH, you tell the story of Delilah and Samson. What was it about Delilah that compelled you to tell her story?

The fact that she's been vilified for so many centuries -- because her side lost. Flip the winner, historically speaking, and she's a great heroine.

What was the starting point for your research on the book?

My starting point is always the Bible (KJV, which I love for beauty of language.) The Crossways Bible Gateway is invaluable. (http://www.biblegateway.com/) Unfortunately, the Bible leaves huge gaps in its stories, which can be minefields for the unsuspecting author! In the case of King David (QUEENMAKER), I was happily writing along and came upon Absalom's revolt.You have to understand here that David is king, has the standing army, the city of Jerusalem, and a permanent water supply. Absalom has his rowdy friends and some trained war gerbils. Yet as Absalom approaches Jerusalem, King David happily chortles "We must arise and flee!" Leaving the poor author saying "Why, David? WHY must you do this thing?" Oh, that was a fun moment. With the Delilah story, it managed to escape my notice that I was going to have to bring down a temple on a lot of people...and I hate killing off people.

Tell us something surprising about the life of women in Philistia.

I'm not sure there's anything that surprising. In all of human history, the average woman ran her household and raised her children. She spun and wove; ground grain and baked. She was responsible for the household gods. Woman's work's never done, and it's always been cyclical. Some women ran their own businesses -- it still boils down to the women doing the work!


Tell us something about the Philistines we didn't know.

Well, to start with, the Philistines were an artistic, cultured people. The reason we now use "Philistine" to mean an uncouth, boorish ignoramus is because the Philistines lost out in the Clone Wars, aka "History is written by the winning side". The Philistines were the heirs of Minoan Crete, one of the golden highlights of ancient history. My other favorite bit of Philistine trivia is the dog cemetary. Fairly recently discovered, it contains the lovingly-buried bodies of hundreds of dogs -- not, apparently, dog sacrifices, either.

Although the book is called Delilah, it is told in multiple viewpoints. What was the impetus behind that decision, instead of telling the story strictly from Delilah’s POV?

Only Delilah's POV would have been too limiting. In first person, only what the person hears, sees, experiences, or is told can be on stage. Delilah couldn't know what Samson was doing, as she wouldn't be there. But even the other POV's in the novel all revolve around Delilah.

I was fascinated by the relationship between Delilah and Aylah. Normally in books they would have much more of an antagonistic relationship, but in Delilah they are good friends. Was that a conscious choice?

I never even thought of them as adversaries; they were dear friends from the book's inception. I can't imagine women without women friends; we need each other. (I read somewhere that women who emigrated out to the western USA during the Wild West period would die of sheer loneliness because they never saw another woman.)

You depart in many ways from the story of Samson and Delilah as it is written in the bible, particularly in the time line, since Samson’s story stretches over twenty years. What made you decide to make the changes that you did?

And oi, is Samson's story a pain for a writer! After the first stories about Samson -- he marries a Philistine woman, he kills 30 men just to get their clothes to pay off a bet, getting blind drunk, burning animals alive -- even the biblical narrator just sort of throws up his/her hands and says "And Samson judged in Israel twenty years" because clearly NOBODY would trust Samson to judge anything but a Miss Nude Canaan contest.

So I freely adapted the story. Sorry, but I'm not having any heroes who tie foxes' tails together and set them on fire. There have to be more efficient ways to burn your enemies' fields!

Could you explain a little about Atargatis?

Atargatis is one of the many fertility/mother/lover goddesses. One thing I loved with the information about a pool of sacred fish in her temple.

And finally how much of the book is fact and how much fiction, do you believe that Samson and Delilah actually existed?

Since we know nothing about Delilah except her name – people usually assume she was a Philistine, but all the Bible says is that Samson "…loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah." (Judges 16:4) – everything about the Delilah of THE IVORY GATE is fiction. I tried to set her in a specific time and place. While I designed the temple of Atargatis, ancient Ascalon existed and was a beautiful city to work with. It was a jewel; a rich trading capital, with a massive road that led from the harbor to the city gate. I imagine it as being as vibrant and volatile as New York City.

This is your third book based on stories from The Bible. What do you find compelling about biblical stories?

Well, at the risk of sounding like Miss Snark -- I find them compelling because they're compelling stories. No story stays in the public consciousness for over 3,000 years because it's DULL! And the Bible tells us just enough of any story to whet our appetites for more. (For example, after all he went through, Moses never gets to set foot in the Promised Land. Okay, how did he FEEL about that??)

What are you working on next?

I'm working on an epic romantic historical novel set in 1879-80 India. My next book from St. Martin's is on my editor's desk now. Currently titled THE MIRROR'S DAUGHTERS, it's another Biblical retelling, this time about Queen Vashti and Queen Esther.

Thanks India! Scandalous Women is giving away a copy of this fabulous book. Note this giveaway is only available to my American and Canadian readers. Here are the rules:

1) Just leave a comment with your email address at the end of this post.

2) If you are not a follower of the blog and you become one, you get one extra entry.

3) Twitter about the giveaway and let me know about it, and you get two extra entries.
4) The contest ends November 24rd 2009 at 12:00 p.m. and will be announced on November 25th.

The Winner of Vanora Bennett's Blood Royal

And the winner of Vanora Bennett's Blood Royal is......

Fleur De Mar

Thanks to everyone that entered. Please come back because there are more giveaways coming up on Scandalous Women!

Today in #Herstory: The Wedding Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur

On November 14, 1501, Catherine of Aragon married Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth, at St. Paul's Catheredral in London. Five months later Arthur was dead and a whole can of worms opened up. Was their marriage consummated? Historians have been debating this question for centuries.

Catherine of Aragon was 16, and Arthur was 15 on their wedding day. The two had already been married by proxy in 1499, waiting only until Arthur was old enough.  The couple later met on November 4, 1501 at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Little is known about what they first thought of each other, but Arthur wrote to his in-laws that he would be 'a true and loving husband' and told his parents that he was immensely happy to 'behold the face of his lovely bride'.

After their marriage, Arthur was sent to Ludlow Castle, to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches, as was his duty as Prince of Wales, and Catherine went with him. A few months later, they both fell ill, possibly with the sweating sickness. He died on 2 April 1502, and she almost died too, but recovered to find herself a widow at barely 17. 28 years later Catherine would say that she and Arthur had shared a bed only 7 times, and that on none of those occasions did they have sexual intercourse. However, after Arthur's death, Catherine never once mentioned that the marriage wasn't consummated, even during the months when the court was watching to see if she was pregnant.

It was the custom for the bride and groom to be 'bedded,' meaning before witnesses. In the case of Catherine and Arthur, Henry VII and his battle-axe of a mother Margaret Beaufort, Arthur's mother Queen Elizabeth, and a whole host of courtiers crowded into the bedchamber while the curtains were drawn around the royal couple. After the deed was allegedly done, the bridal sheets were produced as evidence.  Witnesses later testified that the marriage was indeed consummated.

The bridegroom even boasted of his prowess. Of course, it's not exactly proof postive. Witness any  high school boy who has boasted to his friends about 'scoring' with his girlfriend, when nothing of the kind took place (Remember the scene in Grease when Sandy and Danny sing two opposing viewpoints in 'Summer Lovin'?). 'Gentlemen, I have been this night in the midst of Spain, and it hath been thirsty work,' Arthur is alleged to have said. Truth or youthful boasting?

In the months after Arthur's death, when everyone was on baby bump watch, Catherine could have said that they were wasting their time. Why didn't she? Was it because of grief over losing her young husband? Or her attempt to prolong her stay in the hopes of eventually marrying his brother Henry? The last thing Catherine wanted was to be returned to Spain. She had been groomed since childhood to be a Queen. All that awaited her was either a long widowhood, or a second less illustrious marriage.

She was aided by  her father-in-law who was reluctant to give her 200,000 ducat dowry. To avoid having to give back the money, it was agreed she would marry Henry who was five years younger than she was. Unfortunately for Catherine, it took 7 long years before she and Henry were married. During that time, she had to endure poverty and insults, treated like a second class citizen.  And the death of her mother, Isabella of Castile meant that Catherine's 'value' in the marriage market decreased. Castile was a much larger kingdom than Aragon and it was inherited by Catherine's mentally unstable elder sister, Juana. The argument was that the marriage was delayed until Henry was old enough, but Henry VII procrastinated so much about Catherine's unpaid dowry that it seemed doubtful that the marriage would ever take place. She lived as a virtual prisoner at Durham House in London. Some of her letters to her father, complaining of her treatment, have survived.

It was only then that she insisted that her marriage to Arthur had been uncosummated. On the 23 of June 1504, she and Henry were officially bethrothed at last. From the beginning, there was opposition to the marriage. The Bishop of London who had officiated at Arthur's marriage to Catherine, disapproved on the grounds of impropriety, that it was against biblical teaching. The papal bull didn't arrive in England until 1506. When it did arrive, it was clear that it assumed that the marriage was consummated. On June 27, 1505 Prince Henry himself lodged an official protest against the betrothal on the grounds that it would be incest. 4 months later the Pope wrote a letter to Arthur, who had been dead for almst four years (was the mail that slow back then?) urging him to curb his wife from excessive religious practices like fasting that could prevent baby making. It wasn't until after the death of Henry VII that Catherine and Henry were finally married. Catherine's second wedding took place on 11 June 1509, seven years after Prince Arthur's death. She married the recently crowned Henry VIII in a private ceremony at Greenwich Church. She was 23 and the new king was just days short of his 18th birthday.

As lovers of history know, when Henry sought to have his marriage to Catherine annulled because of her marriage to his brother. Catherine again vehemently denied that her marriage to Arthur was consummated. There are some historians who believe that Catherine was telling to truth because, in her later years, she earned a reputation for piety. She regularly wore a hairshirt underneath her garments. Yet she tolerated the sinful lifestyle of her confessor, who had a reputation as a womanizer. He slept his way through most of the women at court. Despite his proclivities, Catherine defended him vociferously despite the damage to her own reputation. It was also recorded that early in her marriage to Henry, Catherine continued to claim to be pregnant even after it was clear that she had lost the baby.  Of course this doesn't mean that Catherine wasn't telling the truth about her marriage to Arthur, but it does show that Catherine was quite capable of turning a blind eye to things that she didn't want to deal with or see.

It is entirely possible that Catherine had told the story of her innocence so many times that she began to believe that the marriage to Arthur was unconsummated. It was also expedient for Henry to believe that the marriage was consummated, so that he had a free 'get out of jail' card so that he could marry Anne Boleyn.  Henry had no qualms about bending the law to suit his purposes. No one will ever know for sure what happened between Catherine and Arthur on their wedding night, but what did or didn't happen was to set in motion a chain of events that led to England's break with the Church of Rome, and the monarch of England becoming the head of a new church.

Sources:

David Starkey, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Joanna Denny, Anne Boleyn

New Book: High Society The Life of Grace Kelly

Today would have been the 80th birthday of Grace Kelly, born November 12, 1929. Last year, I wrote a post about her here.  Now a new book by author Donald Spoto was just released this month. I have read almost every major biography of Grace Kelly, so I'm sort of anxious as to whether or not this one is going to be any good. However, I have read several books by Donald Spoto, most recently his biography of Hitchcock Spellbound, so I am hopeful that this one won't be a hatchet job.

From the back cover:

Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood’s legendary actresses. In just seven years–from 1950 through 1956–Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of To Catch a Thief, Grace established herself as one of Hollywood’s most talented actresses and iconic beauties. Her astonishing career lasted until her retirement at age twenty-six, when she withdrew from stage and screen to marry a European monarch and became a modern, working princess and mother.

 Based on never-before-published or quoted interviews with Grace and those conducted over many years with her friends and colleagues–from costars James Stewart and Cary Grant to director Alfred Hitchcock–as well as many documents disclosed by her children for the first time, acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto explores the transformation of a convent schoolgirl to New York model, successful television actress, Oscar-winning movie star, and beloved royal.

 As the princess requested, Spoto waited twenty-five years after her death to write this biography. Now, with honesty and insight, High Society reveals the truth of Grace Kelly’s personal life, the men she loved, the men she didn’t, and what lay behind the façade of her fairy-tale life.

Publishers Weekly actually gives the book a decent review. "Noted film biographer Spoto (Spellbound by Beauty) gives readers a previously unseen glimpse into the life of Grace Kelly (1929–1982), who went from Academy Award–winning actress to princess of Monaco. Cinephiles will love Spoto's insider look at Hollywood in the 1950s, and even those unfamiliar with Kelly's films will be drawn to the author's warm and generous portrayal of a woman who was more than a pretty face."  Library Journal and Kirkus are not quite so enamored of the book. I am interested to read it, although I'm not quite sure what new details he can really reveal. It's been 27 years since her death.  You would think that everything that could be written, has been. Since this book is almost $26 this might have to go on my Amazon wish list.

Any books that have just been released that you are particularly keen on reading? Are you all celebrity biographied out?

The Power of the Force - Female Force

Even though technically I'm an adult, I still read graphic novels. A couple of months ago, I was in one of my favorite comic book stores when I found these comics by Blue Water Productions. Featuring Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michele Obama and Caroline Kennedy in the first few issues, the initial mandate was to feature strong women in politics. These issues have been collected into one book.

Since the first few issues, Female Force has done issues on Condoleeza Rice, Oprah, Barbara Walters and Princess Diana. The comics are about 35 pages, the art work is superb and best of all there is a bibliography of books and web-sites so that readers can find out more information about these women. I think they are great for both middle school and high school students. While they shouldn't replace reading biographies, it can give kids a strong sense of who these women were. Future issues will feature Nancy Pelosi, Stephanie Meyers (of Twilight Fame) and JK Rowling.