Firstly I would like to say, this is my second historical novel, published 27 September 2014.
'Nemesis In Pursuit of Justice' is a woman's story set in 12th century Normandy and for me, the author, it was quite a challenge to write. Not because of the time period but because it was from a woman's point of view.
It is about survival and revenge.
The protagonist is Isabella. She is a ficticious eldest illegitimate daughter of Henry, youngest son of William the Conqueror.
The story opens in the year 1082. A child is brutally cut out from her mother’s womb on the orders of Henry, she is later baptised Isabella.
Brought up in Henry’s court, Isabella on reaching adolescence is famed for her beauty and intelligence, groomed to further her father’s rapacious ambitions.
At the age of twelve, she is sent, by her father on a mission to seduce and murder his enemy Robert de Bellême a supporter of Duke Robert of Normandy, heir to the English throne.
The plot fails. Isabella falls in love and secretly marries Robert, bearing him two children, Robert and Mabile.
When her husband is arrest and imprisoned for treason by her father, now King Henry 1st of England, she flees Normandy to rebuild her life in Burgundy.
From her new sancuary she strives for justice; the release of her husband from her father's prison.
King Henry is revealed as a usurper, steeped in fear and fractricide who is determined to murder Isabella's children, a perceived threat to his crown through the conjoined bloodlines of Isabella and Robert de Bellême.
Continually tormented by the fear of her father’s vengeance, she is terrified for herself and the lives of her children.
On hearing of her husband death, she secrets his body back from Corfe Castle in England to Normandy for an honourable burial. On seeing her dead husband’s brutally tortured and scarred body, Isabella is shocked and horrified. She responds to little more than primitive instinct and retreats ever deeper into the wilderness of assassin to exact retribution.
Although I am pleased with this story, it has occurred to me that there should be a prequel to the 'BELLÊME The Norman Warrior' novel which precedes Nemesis. I wonder if other authors have this problem; needing to write more to expand the original story.
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