Barbara Kyle is not only an author, she's been an actress as well! The Canadian author has acted in various productions ranging from sitcoms to soap operas before becoming a distinguished and best-selling author. Perhaps her years as an actress prepared her for writing fascinating, dramatic, and well-written novels?
Kyle studied in a classical theatre program at the National Theatre School of Canda in Montreal. She had an acting career of made-for-TV movies, sitcoms, dramas, and soap operas. She also appeared in many stage productions throughout Canada and the United States.
Kyle eventually used her acting experience to write. Three thriller novels were published: "Beyond Recall", "After Shock", and "The Experiment" where she used a male pen name of Stephen Kyle. The novels were successful and Kyle enjoyed writing them, but her real love was with the historical fiction genre. Her first historical fiction novel, "The Queen's Lady" published in 2008 was a success! Two more novels followed: "The King's Daughter" and most recently "The Queen's Captive". These novels are set in Tudor England and feature fictional characters of the Thornleigh family manuevering the dangerous Tudor court.
Kyle is married and has a grown daughter. She holds appearances and courses for writers to help them with their writing. Kyle also has a 4-DVD workshop series on writing fiction. From an actress to a successul writer, Kyle definitely has a talent for the arts!
How did your interest in the Tudor period come about?
Kyle: I’d have to blame Shakespeare for that. As a kid I was knocked out by the Lawrence Olivier film of “Richard III”. It made a deep impression – the power of those characters – and it got me reading YA biographies of the early Tudor era. Then, in my 20’s I was trained in classical theatre at the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, so the Elizabethan world and the Elizabethan cadence of language seeped into my bones from acting in plays such as Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and “The Merchant of Venice” and Jonson’s “Volpone”.
Instead of writing primarily about historical characters from the Tudor court such as King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth I, you focus on fictional characters you created and their role at the Tudor court. Why did you decide to focus on fictional characters rather than the historical characters?
Kyle: The rarified world of kings and queens, though fascinating, always lies at a distant remove from the reader’s personal experience, whereas the reader can quickly identify with the desires and struggles of ordinary people of the time. That identification creates a strong emotional bond in the reader when the ordinary characters get caught up in the turmoil of the royals’ lives.
"The Queen's Lady" is about Honor Larke, a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon during the time of King Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn and all the religious strife going on. Honor's role in the religious strife is key. How did you develop this story
Kyle: It started with Sir Thomas More. I was drawn by the paradox More presented. He was Henry VIII’s chancellor and famously went to the execution block because, for religious reasons, he refused to sanction Henry’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon. I say paradox because More was a brilliant scholar and a loving father, but as chancellor of England his religious zeal made him cruely intolerant: he banned books – including the Bible in English; the Catholic church allowed only the Latin Bible at that time – and he burned men at the stake for their religious beliefs. I think this resonates with the religious paranoia of our own time. In “The Queen’s Lady” I created the character of Honor Larke to be More’s ward, and my story turns on Honor’s passionate conflict with her once-beloved guardian as she tries to save his victims from the stake, enlisting rogue ship-captain Richard Thornleigh in her missions. A note on Honor’s name: the spelling is Latin, and I chose it after studying “The Lisle Letters” compiled by Muriel St. Clare Byrne. This is a collection of correspondence from 1533-1540 written to and from the family of Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, who was appointed by Henry VIII as governor of Calais, England’s possession in France at the time. His wife’s first name was Honor.
What do you believe were strengths and weaknesses to Honor's character?
Kyle: Strengths: her passion for what she believes in, and her clear-eyed vision of the destructive nature of religious extremism. Weakness: her blindness to the corrosive power of her personal vendetta against More.
In "The King's Daughter" the story of Isabel Thornleigh, the daughter of Honor is told with the backdrop being the unhappy court of Queen Mary I full of religious persecution. How did you develop the various stories of Isabel, the mercenary Carlos, Wyatt's Rebellion, and Queen Mary herself?
Kyle: The facts of the Wyatt rebellion are so exciting they are a drama in themselves. The revolt was triggered by Queen Mary’s cruel enforcement of her religious beliefs, which is abundantly clear in the many biographies of Mary. With “The King’s Daughter,” which follows “The Queen’s Lady,” I wanted the story to focus on Isabel and her struggle with her divided loyalties; on one hand she is pledged to help Wyatt in his rebellion against the tyrannical queen, but on the other hand she is desperate to save her imprisoned father. She enlists Carlos, a mercenary, to help her, and his character came straight out of my research. Carlos’s record of employment by the previous English regime, and his award of land, fit the historical facts of the English Crown’s use of foreign mercenaries. Henry VIII hired German, Italian, and Spanish mercenaries to fight the French at Boulogne and to defend England’s northern frontier against Scotland. Henry’s son, the teenaged King Edward VI, used thousands of foreign mercenaries to defeat the Scots at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, and then kept a large number of these veterans on to quell unrest within England. For this information, and for other 16th century military details, I am indebted to Gilbert John Millar’s book “Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries 1485-1547”.
What do you believe were the strengths and weaknesses to Isabel's character?
Kyle: Strengths: her bold and brave actions to assist Wyatt, and her unflagging loyalty to her family. Weaknesses: her naïve trust in Edward Sydenham which blinds her to his goal of destroying her father and Carlos.
Your latest novel, "The Queen's Captive" follows the story of Adam, Honor's son and Isabel's brother mixed in with Princess Elizabeth's quest to gain her freedom and the crown from her half sister, Queen Mary. How did you develop this story?
Kyle: I wanted to show the terrible strain and fear that the proud but vulnerable twenty-year-old Princess Elizabeth was under as a captive of her sister who hated her. Honor returns from exile to counsel Elizabeth on how to survive Queen Mary’s persecution, and the danger and intrigue are heightened when Adam falls in love with Elizabeth, putting Honor and her whole family in jeopardy. The heart of this story is how Honor must take a headstrong young princess and turn her into a queen before “Bloody Mary” destroys them all.
Can you describe the relationship between Adam and Princess Elizabeth?
Kyle: All I’ll say is that it’s a passionate love affair, but doomed. How and why, I hope readers will discover for themselves!
Can you tell readers about your upcoming projects?
Kyle: I’ve just finished writing the next book in this “Thornleigh” series. It’s called “The Queen’s Gamble” and it features Isabel and Carlos again as they are caught up in the first international crisis of the young Queen Elizabeth’s reign. “The Queen’s Gamble” will be published in mid-2011. I’m currently doing research for the book to follow that, which will introduce a new Thornleigh family member as she goes to serve Mary Queen of Scots who has fled to England for sanctuary from her enemies.
Where have you traveled for research and inspiration for your novels?
Kyle: I’ve done lots of pleasant meandering through England’s hills and dales, castles, churches, and historical houses to walk in the footsteps of my characters, both real and fictional. Equally inspirational, though, is a constant meandering through historical records, biographies, and non-fiction historical accounts of the sixteenth century. The people of the Tudor period often seem more real to me than people in my own life!
What other historical fiction authors do you admire or enjoy? What authors from the past and present do you enjoy or have inspired you?
Kyle: Jane Austen and Shakespeare remain my touchstones for inspiration, she for her humanity, he for the passion of his characters. Books by current authors that have moved me, and left me gobsmacked by their authors’ skill, are A.S. Byatt’s “Possession” and Ian McEwan’s “Atonement.” I greatly admire John LeCarré, not only for his consummate skill as a writer but also for his clear-eyed, liberal worldview. And I gobble up Joanna Trollope’s razor-sharp novels of middle-class English families. As for historical novels, I fell in love years ago with Edith Pargeter’s books, and the historicals that have thrilled me most have been big, saga-type stories: Leon Uris’s “Trinity,” James Michener’s “The Source,” James Clavell’s “Shogun,” Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With The Wind,” Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove,” Herman Wouk’s “The Winds Of War.” A few months ago I reread “Shogun” and marveled again at its narrative vitality and the thrilling scope of Clavell’s depiction of the life-and-death political and social currents in 16th century Japan. I would happily re-read all of the books listed above.
Lastly, who is your favorite historical figure from the Tudor period and your favorite fictional character that you have created?
Kyle: That’s a hard choice – there are so many fascinating, larger-than-life people in that period. The paradoxical Sir Thomas More, the Machiavellian Thomas Cromwell, the proud Queen Katherine of Aragon, the tyrannical but tragic Queen Mary. However, I’d have to say that Elizabeth remains my favorite. She is endlessly fascinating for her brilliance, her deft management of foreign affairs, the astonishing peacefulness of her forty-four-year reign, her sacrifice of personal happiness in order to maintain the stability of her realm, her religious tolerance, and her clever sense of humor that seems quite modern. It’s hard not to admire this greatest of England’s monarchs. As for my favorite fictional creation, that’s an even harder choice – like a mother being asked which of her children she loves best! I truly love them all.
*A huge thanks to Barbara Kyle for this interesting interview*
For more information on Barbara Kyle: http://www.barbarakyle.com/Home.page
Comments