Two years. That’s when my first set of five books will be ready to consider publishing them. My setting is so unusual it doesn’t have a ready-made audience or specific literary genre category.
Four years ago, I embarked on a study of church history in Scandinavia and landed in a story world steeped in myth and folklore. The mindset of early eighteenth century Scandinavia was more medieval than modern, especially in rural areas, and acknowledged the nisse in the forest and the hafgufa in the sea. The Puritan and Methodist movements in pre-colonial America and Georgian England skipped Scandinavia entirely, although a few Pietists were on hand. Secular philosophy gained a foothold in eighteenth-century France, while the upper strata of English society were not particularly religious. Significant religious movements in Scandinavia came a century later.
My books contain a study of Providence, or the unseen hand of God, at their core, but a wide variety of worldviews are respectfully represented–Roman Catholics in Spain, Jews in Amsterdam, Lutherans in Denmark, and the Sami spirits in the stones.
The first four books in the series are set during a specific long winter, and the characters inhabit each other’s stories. The books stand alone and can be read in any order. I have partially written three prequels and three sequels to the series.
I have been writing in my story world for three years, and I am already quite fond of the characters, as if they are imaginary friends. I can’t wait to introduce Isaac to readers. Initially a sidekick to a main character, he leaped off the pages partway through and took over the series, even popping into the prequels and sequels.
A good historical romance is both an adventure story and a deep character study, with a relationship providing the story structure. I write closed-door, realistic relationships. I don’t want to perpetuate the myth that takes up much of the word count in the romance novels written by women and for women in today’s market—that redemption can be found in the right person. For an excellent treatment of the myth of apocalyptic romance, first posited by secular cultural anthropologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Ernest Becker, read chapter two in one of my favorite religious books, Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller (2009, Riverhead Books, Penguin Group). Keller outlines Becker’s observation that when members of a society seek fulfillment without faith in God, they will seek a divine ideal in their romantic partners (Keller, p. 28).