By Yes, it’s true, I’m alive and yes, still writing.
AUDACITY is officially a complete manuscript and I am deep in the query trenches trying to find a home for it. I face an uphill battle with traditional publishing as this novel doesn’t fit neatly into a specific genre, but straddles a crossroads of historical romance, women’s historical fiction, and some good old fashioned (and male-dominated) swords-and-sandals fiction. Yet I remain confident that I am not alone in wanting to read a book like this. Similar books fill the Young Adult shelves and I can’t help but believe there are plenty of adult readers hoping to find a, well, adult version of those books.
I can’t help but remain frustrated that women warriors seem relegated to the YA/fantasy realms, that when I google books about warrior women, the sweeping majority of adult offerings revolve around political figures. This isn’t to diminish the women of history and today who found power off the battlefield, but to ask why we continue to believe that’s the only way historical women were powerful, why, as we push for more and more stories highlighting the women who bucked history, there remains a hard line that they could buck history everywhere except combat, when archaeological and written stories suggest otherwise.
Before diving into the follow up novel, I plan to immerse myself in more research and using this blog to share what I’m learning. So, stand by for an obsessive education on ancient Germany, Rome, and the women of antiquity who wielded swords.
And maybe some sneak peeks into the world of AUDACITY.