I sat down with time travel and historical romance author Fil Reid for an interview. Book 6 in her Guinevere series, THE ROAD TO AVALON, which is inspired by the Arthurian legend, released November 23, 2023. Fil tells us about her life, her writing and her series in our interview. We hope you enjoy it!
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What do you want readers to come away with after they read THE ROAD TO AVALON?
Two main things. Because my books are set in a real historical time period, I’ve used real historical places as much as possible, such as Tintagel (books 2 and 6), Avebury Stone Circle (book 5), Vindolanda (book 3), York (book 4), all of which I’ve visited. I’d love it if readers became interested enough in the legends and my books that they decide to visit these places themselves and stand in the footprints of my characters.
I’d also like them to come away with a better understanding of Arthurian legend, as I stick to it as much as possible in my books. While I was writing the books, I discovered that the one thing most people know about is Lancelot! And he’s a much later French addition so is never in my books. At the start of books 1 to 3 I put in a precis of the legend itself, just to get people on the right track. A lot of the more obscure side stories you won’t have heard before are from little known legends – eg Amhar’s storyline.
When were you first published and how did that happen? Was it a long or short journey?
I entered the Dragonblade competition when I spotted it online quite by chance. I never thought I’d win, but I did, and the prize was some cash (always nice) and a three book deal. Those three books came out in 2022, and then books 4 to 6 have been coming out this year. Book six is the one that’s just come out on the 23rd. Next year I have a four book series coming out – The Cornish Ladies series. Kathryn le Veque suggested I try my hand at Regency romance and it’s been fun. The only duke in my books is old and grouchy though.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
An out and out pantser for sure. When I began book one in the Guinevere series the only thing I knew was how the series would end, but not how I’d get there, or how many books it would entail. Someone said to call it ‘being a discovery writer’ and I like that better. I discover my story as I go along.
What I did do, though, was write myself a fairly comprehensive history of the end of Roman rule in Britain (up to AD410) and what happened afterwards prior to Gwen’s arrival in the Dark Ages in about AD490. That was great fun. So I had my world already in my head when I began writing and it felt very real to me. A lot of that was history, but some of it I had to create for myself, which was just as much fun.
What book for you has been the easiest to write? The hardest? The most fun?
None of them were hard to write but the one I’ve most enjoyed writing was book six, (THE ROAD TO AVALON) although it was also the saddest for me as it was the last one in the series. I felt quite down after I’d finished it. I absolutely love writing and it’s never a chore. I love every aspect of it – the research beforehand or along the way, the writing, revising, checking the edits. But book six was such fun as it contained all the tying up of storylines, the closure for the characters and for me, and the ending I’d known I was heading towards during the other books. It might surprise readers a bit.
What’s one thing that your readers would be surprised to learn about you?
I have both Asperger’s Syndrome and Menière’s Disease. I was late diagnosed with the Asperger’s after two of my sons were and it answered a lot of questions for me, not least why I’m so obsessive. The MD I’ve had since about 2007, and it’s incurable. I get severe vertigo with it that totally incapacitates me, so I have to write in between bouts. But I manage. You just have to when you’ve got something like that.
What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?
This is a hard one to answer because I love everything about being a writer. I guess the bit I’m least happy with is the publicity. Being ASD I’m not keen on big crowds or people I don’t know, but I do it anyway. Plus I’m always a bit scared I might have a sudden MD attack which makes you look as though you’re drunk – and I don’t even drink! You’ve got to force yourself to put yourself out there so people get to know you and your books. I guess, though, if I had to pick one thing I love above everything else it’s got to be creating a new book out of my imaginings.
Tell us a bit about you. Where do you live, and how long have you been writing?
I live on a canal boat in the South of England and have a neat little computer corner where I slip on my noise cancelling headphones and slide into my world of imagination. I’ve been writing since I was five years old and my parents bought me a Petite Children’s Typewriter. Firstly pony stories and then moving on to adventure/romance tales as I grew older.
A genie grants you one wish. What is it?
I’d like to be able to sing. I’m just dreadful at it, but I quite like doing it – in private. When I was a child my sister would suggest we sang, then she’d suddenly stop so I kept going on my own and she could laugh at me. I’d like to be able to sing well enough that people would go ‘she’s got a lovely voice’. My youngest son has perfect pitch – goodness knows where he got that from! His father I should think.
What genre is your favorite to read?
My favourite genre is not romance, as you’d imagine, but thrillers. I love a taut, on the edge-of-your-seat thriller more than anything. I tend to buy my ebooks from Bookbub though, so never get to read a series in the right order. Living on a boat, my kindle is a godsend and I only have solid copies of my Arthurian research books.
What are your hobbies away from the computer?
I sew. My late mother was a needlework teacher so she’d be impressed how much I sew nowadays. She always used to laugh when I said it was ‘just commonsense’ as her girls at school did not find it so. However, if you can read and follow instructions, it is. I make clothes for my granddaughters, toys, dolls, shirts for my sons and I embroider, and design my own patterns. I’ve been so busy lately, though, I haven’t done any sewing for a while.
Share a photo of your writing space.
What do you like best about your hero in THE ROAD TO AVALON?
I have to admit to being more than a little bit in love with Arthur, the hero of my six book series, although in this book, the final one, he doesn’t exactly cover himself in glory. He’s handsome, of course, and quite ‘unreconstructed’ which basically means he’s a bit of a chauvinist. He’s rugged and can do anything he tries, he has what people nowadays would call ‘the common touch’ in that he knows the names and problems of all his subjects, he’s hot between the sheets (of course), and an excellent rider and warrior. And he’s deeply in love with my heroine.
What do you like best about your heroine in THE ROAD TO AVALON?
What made Gwen such fun to write was that she sees the whole world I’ve created through the eye of the reader. She turns her nose up about things the reader would find abhorrent, knows the modern names of places she visits, knows a lot about the legends. It made her easy for me to use to get over information I wanted the reader to know, without having to lay it on with a trowel. She’s feisty and doesn’t take being bossed around lying down – as you’ll find out if you read this book. And although she begins as a somewhat passive character in book one, she matures throughout the series into fulfilling what she arrived in the Dark Ages to do. She has a big hand in the creation of the legends.
How do you choose the names and physical characteristics of your characters? Do you base them on real people?
Well, a large number of the characters in all six books are ‘real’ in that they occur in the legends of King Arthur, or in king lists and genealogies from the time. So I stuck with their real names. For minor characters I had a list of Celtic names I could draw on for people like Cottia, Maia, Breanna etc. It does make working out pronunciation a bit hard for the reader, but if you use modern Welsh as a basis, that’s much as they should be pronounced. Eg Llawfrodedd (found him in a tiny legend) should be pronounced ‘Llawvrodeth’ – although that double L should be kind of doubly pronounced. And Llacheu is Llachy as in sky.
As for their physical characteristics – they just leap into my head fully formed and all I have to do is describe them.
How can readers reach you or find you online?
My social media:
https://www.facebook.com/filreidauthor
https://www.instagram.com/fjrflicka/
https://twitter.com/Filreidauthor
Tell us a little about your current work in progress.
I’ve just finished writing book four in The Cornish Ladies so I’m kind of in between books at the moment. I have some ideas for my next series but so far nothing written down apart from some research.
So I’ll tell you about the book I just finished. It’s called The Cornish Widow and is about a penniless young widow who returns, with her two children, to the county of her birth thanks to the charity of her late husband’s manipulative great aunt. And of course, she meets her rather attractive neighbour who turns out to be a gentleman smuggler. I shan’t say more or I’d risk giving away the plot.
If I was a first time reader of your books, which one would you recommend I start with and why?
You’d need to start with book one – The Dragon Ring. The whole six book series tells the story of Arthur and Guinevere and covers twenty years. Far too much happens to have squeezed it into one book. It is possible to read the later books alone, but you’d miss too much I think. The whole story runs coherently together as one long tale – about 650,000 words in total.
Tell us about your current release.
The book that has just come out – The Road to Avalon – is the final book in the series, and my favourite of all of them. The one I most enjoyed writing and also the longest and the one with the most action. It’s pretty much nonstop. Like book one, it only covers a short time span, but a lot happens.
Twenty years have passed since Gwen fell back in time. She’s got two children and a stepson, but they’re all grown up now, as is Medraut, who gets nastier and sneakier now he’s an adult. If you know the legend, as she does, you know what’s coming – Camlann. The battle in which Arthur faced his rebellious nephew and ended up carted off to Avalon by three queens to sleep until Britain’s hour of need. That’s the legend – prepare to discover the truth behind it.
BLURB for The Road to Avalon:
Twenty years have passed since Gwen fell back in time to become King Arthur’s Queen Guinevere. Eight years of comparative peace since the triumph at Badon. All seems quiet and, with Medraut long gone and possibly dead, the prospect of Camlann seems far away and perhaps just a part of the legend that’s not true.
Until Arthur and Gwen go to Viroconium for the Council of Kings and take Amhar, now eighteen, with them. And he meets up with the very much alive-and-kicking Medraut again. Unable to prevent Amhar inviting Medraut back to Din Cadan with them, Gwen can only watch in fear as events begin to unroll that will lead to the one thing she’s been fearing throughout her time in the Dark Ages – the fateful battle of Camlann.
But before Camlann can rear its ugly head, news comes of the death of King March of Caer Dore in Cornwall. Arthur and Gwen travel west for his funeral rites, taking with them his son, Drustans. His one aim is to reclaim the love of his life, Essylt, who was forced to marry his father instead of him nineteen years ago. But Gwen has seen his tombstone in the far off twenty-first century, and she’s afraid this will not end well.
Gwen and Arthur’s love is about to be tested to its absolute limit as Medraut takes on the mantle of chief villain in the story, and all seems lost. But when the odds are stacked against her, Gwen is at her strongest, and she’s armed with a foreknowledge no one else possesses.
Can she prevent the tragedies that threaten to unfold in this the final book in the Guinevere series, or is the history of this time written in stone and unchangeable?
Excerpt:
I unfastened my hair tie
and loosened my hair, sending it cascading down my back in a heavy veil of
chestnut. Where was my comb?
Arthur pushed himself
upright. “Come and sit here, and I’ll do your hair for you.” He had my comb in
his hand.
I sat on the bed beside
him and for a few minutes let him comb my hair, enjoying a sensation I’d loved
since childhood and that still reminded me of my long dead mother. However,
Arthur’s version of hair combing involved a fair bit of him running his fingers
through it as well, and those fingers were wont to stray elsewhere. “Is that a
gray hair I see before me?” he asked at last, with a chuckle.
“What?” I pulled as much
of my hair as I could round to get a look, and he burst out laughing.
“Fooled you. Not a gray
hair on your head. Yet…”
I gave him a playful
slap. “Let me look at your hair then. Hmmm. I swear I see a hint of gray
appearing in your beard.”
He dropped my comb and
rubbed his stubbly chin. “Damn it. I’ll have to shave more often.”
I pulled his hands down
and leaned in for a kiss. “Don’t worry. I’ll still love you when you’re old and
gray, and as a matter of fact, I think a few gray hairs on a man make him look
distinguished.” I resolutely pushed away the nagging thought that he might
never get to be old and gray.
For a moment we were
preoccupied as the kiss deepened and I felt that familiar stirring of desire.
Did we have time before dinner? As we parted, we both glanced toward the
hourglass and then chuckled in unison.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked, a wicked glint in his eye.
Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/Road-
Series Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09MR86WGQ
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