Alison Stuart - historical fiction author

BY THE SWORD

Publisher: Wings Press

Release Date: September 2007

When Kate Ashley finds herself the unwilling inheritor of the Thornton family estate of Seven Ways in Worcestershire, she could not have foreseen that along with the impoverished estate she, the respectable widow of a parliamentary officer, would find herself drawn into the last conflict of the English Civil War by her love for the royalist, Jonathan Thornton. Jonathan has returned from exile, carrying with him the vain hopes of the young King Charles II and the demons of his own dark past. In the aftermath of the battle of Worcester, Kate is caught between Jonathan and the man who has hunted him down over the years, the dour parliamentarian, Stephen Prescott. Jonathan comes face to face with his nemesis and learns the price he has paid for his long dead love; a secret that will change his life, and Kate's, forever.

How did I come to write By The Sword?

The inspiration came from a house.

When I was 11 my grandfather, who lived nearby, took me to visit Harvington Hall near Kidderminster in Worcestershire. Something about the serene, red-brick, medieval, moated manor house captured my imagination and by my teenage years I had renamed it Seven Ways and populated it with a fictional family – the Thorntons. Generations of the Thornton family had exciting adventures written in pencil in spiral bound notepads. Over the years, the notepads were put away and the Thorntons forgotten.

It was not till much later (that fortuitous skiing accident which left me with a dislocated shoulder, alone in a ski lodge with a notebook computer) that I decided to write a book and returned once more to my passion for the English Civil War and the Thornton family of Seven Ways. Kate Ashley and Jonathan Thornton came to life as the snow drifted against the window. I hasten to add they bear little or no resemblance to their predecessors in the spiral bound notebook!

My grandfather, to whom this book is dedicated, had a great love of Worcestershire (his father had been, rather romantically, The High Sheriff of Worcester). On that same trip he took us to Worcester itself and recounted the story of the battle of Worcester and the flight of Charles II from that battle. It seemed as if every old house in the county boasted Charles II in their oak trees, cellars or priest holes hiding from the parliamentarian soldiers. Sadly for me, in fact Harvington Hall had no such boast – but with its plethora of heinously uncomfortable hiding places, it could have hidden him for weeks! (A photograph of the priest hole in the study where Giles is hidden is on the Harvington Hall website)

So this is the book of my heart. I hope you enjoy it.