Edale Lane – On Historical Fiction and History

Welcome to my stop for the blog tour organized by Tomorrow Comes Media for Secrets of Milan by Edale Lane! Power, passion, and payback intertwine in Renaissance Italy in this enchanting new installment of the Night Flyer Trilogy. This story appeals wonderfully to those who love historical fantasy and historical romance alike. I have Edale with me today, sharing about her education in History and how that has influenced (or the other way around) her Historical fiction writing.

Let’s learn a little more about Edale before we dive into her guest post, and then after, I’ll share the book cover and synopsis with you.

About the author

Edale Lane is the author of an award winning 2019 debut novel, Heart of Sherwood. She is the alter-ego of author Melodie Romeo, (Vlad a Novel, Terror in Time, and others) who founded Past and Prologue Press. Both identities are qualified to write historical fiction by virtue of an MA in History and 24 years spent as a teacher, along with skill and dedication in regard to research. She is a successful author who also currently drives a tractor-trailer across the United States. A native of Vicksburg, MS, Edale (or Melodie as the case may be) is also a musician who loves animals, gardening, and nature. Learn more on her website. Find her on Twitter.

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Translating experience of MA History to Historical Fiction

Kriti presents me with an interesting topic for this unique blog post, and I must begin by saying that in my case, the order goes the other way around.

I have been writing since my childhood; obviously, no one but me has ever read the vast majority of my stories. I began my adult career as a musician, earning a BA in music education with aspirations of becoming a band director; that never happened. But I did end up teaching school, both private and public in a variety of capacities, for at least 24 years (I lose track). When the timing was right, I decided to go back to college for my master’s degree, but was undecided as to which field to specialize in as I had been teaching a variety of subjects. I chose history because I loved writing historical fiction. I had done a few modern novels, but the bulk of my interest both as a writer and reader had always been historical and fantasy. Something about men and women in leather, the intimate thrill of sword fights, and the role of horses (which I also love) have always drawn my attention. I get enough of what’s going on in the world today on the news–I’m ready to explore other times and places.

While completing my MA I was working on an historical fiction work about a real Viking warlord who invaded Italy and married a real Lombardy warrior-princess. It is a wonderful story; she fought beside him on the battlefield, even when pregnant with one of their ten children! I never finished that one…

In my studies, I had three areas of focus: US Southern History, Medieval-Renaissance European, and Latin American Studies. Whereas I haven’t yet embarked on a novel set in Latin America, I have used research, texts, and lecture information from my other two areas as a springboard for historical fiction novel research. Several short stories that appear in my Melodie Romeo collection, Terror in Time, are set in the US South and all of my Edale Lane titles to date have taken advantage of courses I took in European Medieval and Renaissance periods.

But the best thing about getting the master’s degree, besides increasing my teacher’s salary, was gaining research skills, learning to assess documents, and watch for bias in what chroniclers wrote–and what they didn’t deem was important enough to include. I learned that history is written by the victors and to gain a real understanding of the past, we must look at a wide variety of sources, as well as use our own powers of deduction. Even then, the best and brightest in the field, just as in science, have and do sometimes get it wrong. New evidence is coming to light every day that there existed advanced human civilizations predating the Egyptians and others that historians once thought to be the first. Keeping an open mind and admitting that there are a host of things about the past that we simply don’t know is essential. That void of information then becomes the historical fiction writer’s playground!

One graduate course I took that provided wonderful information for both Heart of Sherwood (Edale Lane’s first FF historical fiction novel) and the Night Flyer Trilogy was all about Renaissance and pre-Renaissance women. While I had heard of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, this course is where I came to truly appreciate her remarkable accomplishments in a time when women were generally treated as the property of men. In the class, we also were introduced to diary writings and other historical documents that detailed the lives of Italian Renaissance women of means. (Unfortunately, we are not privy to the thoughts of peasant women as they did not possess the education to write them down.) These women–women like Madelena Torelli–in this setting and window of time, were allowed more opportunities than those who came before or after them for centuries because of the onset of the Age of Enlightenment. The intellectual salons of Florence and other Italian city-states allowed women to participate and become members. Women, particularly widows, operated their own businesses while the Renaissance also afforded women opportunities as artists, musicians, and writers. Others like Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth of England, and Mary of Scotland gained vast political power as queens. It was only when change began to accelerate too rapidly for the church or those in government to be comfortable with that women were “put back into their place.”

I enjoyed my master’s studies in history and feel they helped prepare me to be a better writer of historical fiction. And while it did bolster my career as an educator, it was for this period in my life and my new career as an author that I truly undertook the endeavor twenty-plus years ago.

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While Florentina as the Night Flyer searches for a mysterious underworld organization that has attempted to murder the woman she loves, Maddie struggles to deal with the danger Florentina is courting. Her brother, Alessandro, has become the most prominent merchant of Milan, but the Night Flyer uncovers a secret so shocking it could destroy them all.

Secrets of Milan is the second book in Edale Lane’s Night Flyer Trilogy, a tale of power, passion, and payback in Renaissance Italy. If you like drama and suspense, rich historical background, three-dimensional characters, and a romance that deepens into true love, then you’ll want to continue the Night Flyer saga.

Want to read Secrets of Milan? Find it on Amazon (Print, Kindle).

Thanks for stopping by on my blog! Be sure to visit other stops on the tour! Check out where they were on Tomorrow Comes Media.

Cover image: Writing desk Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash