This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Heather Graham. Graham is the USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author of more than 100 novels. Her latest, A Lethal Legacy, part of her New York Confidential series, was released on March 12. She was our featured writer on May 5, 2015.
There are certain peoples and eras in history that tend to fascinate us—and we naturally do a bit of white-washing along the way.
What kid
hasn’t played pirate at some point or another?
I mean,
you have the Dread Pirate Robert from The Princess Bride, long ago, you had
Errol Flynn, and then there’s Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow.
Even in
fact, you had Jean Lafitte—a hero at the battle of New Orleans!
Let’s
face it, they were probably mostly a bit—or more than a bit--stinky, and while
ransom was the word of the day, some were brutal murderers as well.
And
Vikings! Incredible seafarers—yes, they invaded! They robbed and pillaged and
those in their path prayed for salvation.
But,
hey—you have Thor. Chris is doing a darned good job as that Norse god!
I always
loved the history, especially because my mom was born in Dublin and had all
kinds of history books about her native city when she came to the states.
Several were on the Viking founding of Dublin. Olaf the White did enter into a
pact with the Ard Ri or high kind of the Irish, and Dublin was a product. Long,
long ago, I wrote one of my first books on (Golden Surrender) on the subject.
My dad’s
family came over from Stirling, Scotland, and while the northern Scots often
did well against invaders because they were so far north and considered to be
rather wild themselves, they often escaped attack.
But the
Vikings were seafarers—and North was just fine with them.
This made
my children convinced that they were half Viking as they grew up. Then, they
joked—the boys all had red in their beards when they grew. Surely, that was
Viking!
A Lethal Legacy, just now out on
shelves, combines pirates, Vikings, and the Arc of the Covenant. And a private
island off NYC. The problem in writing it was basically that concept of,
“Squirrel!” I’d research one point—and find myself going from book to book or
site to site and at the end of the day convincing myself I’d worked all
day—when I really kept finding more and more that was fascinating.
A murder
has just happened—it involves one of Craig Frazier’s cousins, a cousin he
loves. Some are claiming it was an accident—a fall from high, windy bluffs. But
a bank robber had died just so years before—and then, of course, the island was
known to be cursed, Native Americans had perished there, pirates had made it a
base—and before that, possibly, the Vikings had come, no longer to invade—but
to trade.
I think
my mom would be happy—while this isn’t about the founding of Dublin, my mom was
the first to tell me tales about the Irish and the Vikings. And, of course, for
my dad, there is the Scottish connection—an involvement with Knights Templar as
they fled persecution—is in there, too.
All
theory, conjecture, maybe far-fetched—and yet possible.
And all
for St. Patrick’s Day. Oh, and my birthday. (I’ve tried to finagle time so that
I only have to have one every three or four years now, but the universe just
isn’t listening!)
For more information, visit Graham's website at
