I was not entirely in error when I posted I was “slowly bettering”, but a more accurate report seems to be “getting along, yes, but taking a boringly long time about it” and it’s keeping me from doing nearly as much as I would like.

Meanwhile, having posted notice here of Joliffe’s next book, A Play of Heresy, I have to comment on the description of it offered on Amazon.com, beset with errors as it is.  To the good, the first sentence is only slightly misleading – if it’s understood that “only slightly” is in comparison to the second sentence which has a completely false statement in it.  Still, on the whole, the description is better than what my publisher originally had in mind for the cover.  For reasons best known to those who wrote it, it gave away every major plot point except the answer to the final mystery.  A masterpiece of its kind, it did everything in its power to completely spoil just about every surprise the story contained.  I’m afraid you’ll have to take my word for it; for obvious reasons, I’m not going to quote it here!

I’ve come to appreciate that what goes on a cover to describe a book is a finer art than you might think.  Ideally, what goes on the cover should give enough detail to interest a reader in trying the book without giving so much away that there’s no point in reading the book at all.  At the same time, in an attempt to rouse interest, it shouldn’t be so inaccurate that the reader is annoyed when he discovers how badly he’s been misled.

Before my editor began kindly letting me see the proposed cover copy and allowing me to make changes to it, I had two unhappy experiences with too much being revealed, spoiling carefully crafted plot points.  Only once since then – due to a confusion of circumstances – has cover copy gone without my seeing it, and so on the jacket flap of the hardcover The Traitor’s Tale there are at least eleven errors of fact, including the name of the title character.  An impressive display of inaccuracy, to say the least!

– Margaret

The year is on the turn. The first leaves are scattered on the driveway, fallen without even troubling to change color, tired and done before their fellows still holding to the trees. But even their green is dulled, tired with the weeks of summer, the brightness faded. And while the days are still warm, there’s a different coolness to the nights, promising that soon a blanket, neglected all summer, will be needed toward dawn.

I love the changing times of year, when the sense of time passing is so clearly before us. Someone once asked me why I have so much weather in my books. I said because weather is so integral to life that to leave it out of a story lessened the texturing I try for in my writing. The same holds true with seasons. The time of year often weighs heavily on how the characters live their lives.

That said, I’d like to claim that the terrible, cold, wet weather that permeated The Servant’s Tale, The Outlaw’s Tale, and The Bishop’s Tale was not my fault. Chronicles covering those years tell how bad the weather was, and so the weather was bad in my stories, too. I promise you that I greatly enjoyed setting The Boy’s Tale in warm, dry, sun-filled summer days!

A Play of Heresy is scheduled to arrive December 6th!

A FESTIVAL OF MURDER…

In the early summer of 1438, Joliffe and his fellow players have arrived in Coventry for the theatrical festival of Corpus Christi Day. Employed by one of the city’s rich and powerful merchant guilds, they plan to present two of the many plays which will extravagantly depict all of God’s Story in a parade of pomp and pageantry.

But even as they prepare to perform the Nativity, Joliffe may be called on to play a wise man off the stage as well. When the merchant Master Kydwa goes missing and is presumed dead, the cunning Bishop Beaufort calls on Joliffe’s skills as a spy to uncover the mysteries of Coventry’s elite. As suspicion falls on his own companions, Joliffe is drawn into the devilish machinations of a secret sect of heretics bent on destroying the Church. The players may be forced to present the harrowing of Hell, but will Joliffe be able to unravel a confession of corruption before Coventry’s dark enigmas unleash a medieval massacre of the innocents?

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PRAISE FOR THE JOLIFFE MEDIEVAL MYSTERIES

“If you are an historical mystery fan…you’ll want to rush out and get this wonderful series … Entertains and confounds with its intricately plotted mystery and richly detailed writing…” – The Romance Readers Connection

“Brings the period to lush life… Such richly imagined mysteries come around too rarely.” – Roundtable Reviews

A Play of Heresy will be the seventh Joliffe book (for a total of 10 appearances including those in the Frevisse novels).

– Margaret