I'm both a fantasy writer and a professor of medieval history, having loved fantasy since I discovered Tolkien in ninth grade. That and a long trip to Europe with my family in high school--including lots of climbing around castles--got me interested in real medieval history. The two different facets work together surprisingly well--including that both are tough ways to make a living! For one thing, real medieval history can come up with much better plots than anything I could create.
Real medieval people were rather grim by our standards: ruthless, violent, always thinking about death, and with no religious tolerance--and those were the good guys! My own fantasy tends to be lighter, though it always ends up being about sacrifice, mortality, redemption, and similarly knee-slapping topics.
The characters and situations for my first published novel, "A Bad Spell in Yurt," came to me literally in a dream. I'd been trying intermittently for over 20 years to get a novel published, but this one worked! And it became a national "top 10" best-seller in the fantasy/science fiction genre. (Ought to have more dreams like that...)
The "Yurt" series is six novels long; they can be enjoyed in any order, but there is still an overall story arc. The books in the series are (in order) "A Bad Spell in Yurt," "The Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint," "Mage Quest," "The Witch and the Cathedral," "Daughter of Magic," and "Is this Apocalypse Necessary?" The first three are available in an omnibus (both print and ebook) as "My First Kingdom." The next two are available in a print and ebook omnibus, "The Witch and Her Daughter." So for those whose 25-year-old paperbacks are now falling apart, new versions are available!
My first Yurt novella, "The Lost Girls and the Kobold," falls chronologically between "Wood Nymph" and "Mage Quest." The second novella, "Below the Wizards' Tower," happens between "Mage Quest" and "The Witch and the Cathedral." The most recent novella, "A Long Way 'Til November," takes place between "Daughter of Magic" and "Is This Apocalypse Necessary?" (all three novellas are available as an omnibus in one volume, called "Third Time's a Charm"). The overall story of the series is now wrapped up, but I've started a new series, "Yurt, the Next Generation," with a first book called "The Starlight Raven," and the sequel, "An Autumn Haunting." The third volume is called "The Sapphire Ring," and the fourth volume, "The Ill-Born Prince," has just been published.
Of my other novels, "Count Scar" is the closest I've gotten to real medieval history. It's set in a thinly-disguised version of southern France in the thirteenth century. My husband, Robert Bouchard, and I co-wrote it. We have also published the sequel, called "Heretic Wind." Both "Count Scar" and "Heretic Wind" are available together in one big omnibus (both ebook and paperback) called "Galoran and Melchior." "The Sign of the Rose" is a retelling of a story originally written around 1200, in medieval France; it has romance elements but also has real medieval social history, plus sword fights. "Ashes of Heaven" is also a retelling of a medieval story, this one the legend of Tristan and Isolde. My newest version of a medieval tale, "The Knight of the Short Nose," is a fairly loose retelling of the Guillaume d'Orange epic cycle, focusing on the humor and strong women of the original. "Voima" was my chance to revel in the Nordic myths I've always loved, while making up new myths of my own (no Odin or Siegfried here). I've recently given it a new cover and a new title, "Shadow of the Wanderers." For some reason "Yurt" fans have never taken to it, but it may be my favorite book. My other recent step outside my more common fiction is "How I Survived Junior High," a historical novel set in the 1960s in the US, appropriate for young teens and for anyone who remembers (or hasn't been able to forget) what it was like to be 13. I swear it's not autobiographical. I've also recently published a children's book (which I hope adults will also enjoy as a read-aloud), a trickster fairy tale called "Roy Fox and the Palmatian." And finally, for anyone who wants to self-publish, I've written a guide to all the things nobody make clear, "Know your Self Publishing: Things you Wished you Knew Before Publishing."
More information about my novels is available on my website. Recently I've made all my out-of-print books available in print once again as well as in ebook format, and "Bad Spell" and the Count Scar omnibus "Galoran and Melchior" are also available in hardcover. I like a physical book in my hands myself, but for everyone who enjoys the convenience of reading onscreen, enjoy!
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