New Books Network Interview: Lucy Pick

One of the fun parts of conducting New Books Network interviews with authors are the things I learn that I never even knew to ask about. My most recent interview with the historian of medieval Spain Lucy Pick about her second novel, The Queen’s Companion, is one example of such a serendipitous discovery.

I agreed to chat with Lucy, first, because I’ve known her publisher, Martha Hoffman of Cuidono Press, for several years and have enjoyed the previous books she has produced. Second, I’m a historian of medieval Europe, especially Russia, and how could I resist a novel not just about Eleanor of Aquitaine but about Eleanor in her early years, when she traveled to Antioch with her then-husband King Louis VII of France, who allowed himself to be talked into the Second Crusade?

What I learned only during the interview was that this novel grew out of and intersects with Pilgrimage, Lucy Pick’s first work of historical fiction, also published by Cuidono. The Queen’s Companion dives into the life of Pilgrimage’s antagonist (at least one of them) and ultimately explains the forces contributing to the rather nasty behavior exhibited by that character, Lady Aude, and placing it within the broader story of her life and emotional development. Read on—and, of course, listen to the interview, to find out more.

As usual, the rest of this post comes from New Books in Historical Fiction.

Eleanor of Aquitaine is best known as the wife of England’s Henry II, as the mother of his numerous children—including two kings, Richard the Lionheart and his infamous brother John, of Magna Carta fame—and perhaps for her long incarceration at Henry’s insistence after their burning romance turned to ashes.

What is often forgotten is that Eleanor, before she ever met Henry, ruled as queen of France for fifteen years. About a decade into her marriage, Eleanor accompanied her husband, King Louis VII, on the Second Crusade to re-establish Christian control over Jerusalem. In The Queen’s Companion, this is where her story intersects with that of Lucy Pick’s narrator, Lady Aude, who has her own reasons for traveling from Europe to the Holy Land.

Interspersed with the events of the Second Crusade, told from the point of view of the crusaders and witnessed by Aude as Eleanor’s lady-in-waiting, is Aude’s own history, which she presents in the form of stories to Eleanor and her women. Aude is ruthlessly honest in revealing her own flaws and errors as well as her triumphs, and through her voice Lucy Pick creates a character—at times unlikable but always indomitable and even admirable, much like Eleanor herself—who shines a spotlight onto medieval life in all its complexity.