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TALES FROM THE TOWER
I have always loved books, writes subscriber Samantha Ward-Smith. When I was younger, I devoured novels by Jean Plaidy, Norah Lofts, Victoria Holt, Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, the Brontë sisters, and Daphne du Maurier, to name a few. If asked to pick a favourite, I would name three: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and Dracula by Bram Stoker – but the list could go on.
In 2012, I began volunteering at the Tower of London, and an idea took shape. Norah Lofts had written a trilogy following the history of a house and its inhabitants from the Middle Ages to 1959. As a reader, you alone knew its full history – why a staircase was added, why a fireplace was demolished – which created an intimacy I loved. I thought what riches the Tower could offer a writer if you followed a family through the centuries!
I started researching the Tower’s immense history, using the Tower Taverns as my starting point. The Tower of London Prisoner Book became my bible and led me to my two main characters: Maude de Mandeville, imprisoned in 1214 for rejecting King John’s advances and later poisoned by an egg (!), and John’s daughter, Princess Isabella, who was held in the Tower in 1233. Tower of Vengeance reimagines Maude’s story as she makes a deal with the Devil to avenge her death.