Winter,
1539
María de Salinas is dying.
Too ill to travel, she writes a letter to her daughter Katherine, the young duchess of Suffolk. A letter telling of her life: a life intertwined with her friend and cousin Catalina of Aragon, the youngest child of Isabel of Castile. It is a letter to help her daughter understand the choices she has made in her life, beginning from the time she keeps her vow to Catalina to share her life of exile in England.
Friendship, betrayal, hatred, forgiveness – All Manner of Things tells a story of how love wins out in the end.
Praise for All Manner of Things.
“A timeless story of friendship and love, which will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned, All Manner of Things is Wendy J. Dunn's best novel yet…”
Lauren Chater, author of The Lace
Weavers and Gulliver’s Wife.
“To read this book is like tasting a succulent pomegranate that swells and ripens and reveals the luscious fruit…”
Glenice Whitting, author Pickle to a
Pie and What Time is it There?
“A sensitive and inspiring portrait of faith and friendship, framed around the devotion inspired by a remarkable queen. Wendy J. Dunn has written another gem of a novel for Tudor enthusiasts!”
Gareth Russell, author of Young and
Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII
(US title) (2017), The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World: The Sinking of the
Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era (2019).
“This is a story ripe with passion and rich in historical detail. All Manner of Things draws the reader deep into the heart of Henry's Tudor court, with its machinations, betrayals and very human stories of love and loss…”
Rachel
Nightingale, author of The Tales of
Tarya.
“A finely wrought tale that resurrects the indomitable spirit of Katherine of Aragon, breathing new life into her oft-told story... Yet another spellbinding novel from Wendy J Dunn!”
Adrienne Dillard, author of Cor
Rotto and The Raven’s Widow.
"I'm so fussy about historical fiction, but Wendy J Dunn never fails to please. Dunn breathes life into Catalina and Maria in this celebration of true friendship. Their story seemed to reach through the ages to truly touch me. Beautiful, just beautiful"
Claire Ridgway, author of The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A
Countdown.
“…this book made me fascinate over times long ago, times when ancient buildings were brand new, faded portraits were still sharp and striking and faith and loyalty were absolute; times when women had so little autonomy it was never an option for them to venture out on their own and just ditch this damn place.”
Angela Wauchop, Backstory Literary Journal.
¸.•*´¨)✯ ¸.•*¨) ✮ ( ¸.•´✶
Author Inspiration
What inspired Falling Pomegranate Seeds: All Manner of Things? What has inspired all my novels – history. To be more explicit – researching history. To be even more explicit – the history of women.
I was writing my first novel, Dear Heart,
How Like You This? when I first became inspired to write a novel about
Katherine of Aragon. Dear Heart told the story of Anne Boleyn through the point
of view of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder. It was also a novel that
ended up deepening my knowledge about Katherine of Aragon. That was
unavoidable. In her early years at court, Anne Boleyn was one of Katherine's
attendants. Sir Thomas Wyatt also had a close connection to Katherine of
Aragon. His artistic pursuits long benefited from her patronage.
Learning more about Katherine of Aragon also introduced me to María de Salinas. Katherine of Aragon's biography included mention of Maria's winter ride from London to be with the dying Katherine in 1536. I vividly saw her in my mind – a woman of about fifty (old in Tudor times), who did not waste time to ask for permission from Henry VIII (who likely would have refused her) to travel the long distance to Kimbolton Castle, on roads turned deadly dangerous by winter weather conditions.
By 1536, a written permit by the king was necessary to gain access to Katherine
of Aragon. María lacked that. What she did not lack was her immense
determination to be with her friend. She ended up falling from her horse a
short distance from Kimbolton Castle. This worked in her favour because she
stood outside the castle and demanded entry. She was a woman high up in Tudor
society, the mother-in-law of the duke of Suffolk, so the people at the castle
could not refuse to help her. But they would soon discover her true purpose. Once
inside the castle, she headed straight to the chambers of Katherine of Aragon and remained with her until Katherine died in her arms.
History suggests María de Salinas was a kinswoman to Katherine of Aragon. But
she is another woman from history we know little about. We know she was close
to Katherine of Aragon, shared her early years in England, and served Katherine
for years after her marriage to Henry VIII. So, María offered a perfect point
of view character for my goal to tell the story of Katherine of Aragon.
I recreated the first part of Katherine’s story in Falling Pomegranate Seeds:
The Duty of Daughters. When I first began that novel in 2002 (yes, that long
ago!), I was using María de Salinas as my point of view character.
Unfortunately, years after starting this work, I had to face the failure of my
child’s point of view. For my story to work, I realised I needed to re-write it
from the point of view of an adult. The failure of my first vision of my
novel hurt –a lot. But I decided to lick my wounds by enrolling in a Masters in
Writing, which led to a creative Ph.D. My creative artifact was The Light in the Labyrinth (2014), my
second Anne Boleyn novel.
Of course, I never forgot my uncompleted work about Katherine of Aragon. I
wanted to return to it. I always planned to return to it. But other writing
projects kept distracting me. Then, one day, a publisher expressed interest in
the concept of Falling Pomegranate Seeds:
The Duty of Daughters. It pushed me to do that rewrite. Published in
2016, The Duty of Daughters committed me to finish my Katherine of Aragon’s
story. Now I have.
Buy Links:
Amazon UK • Amazon US • Amazon CA • Amazon AU
About the Author
Wendy J. Dunn
Wendy J. Dunn is an Australian author, playwright and poet who has been obsessed with Anne Boleyn and Tudor History since she was ten-years-old. She is the author of three Tudor novels: Dear Heart, How Like You This?, the winner of the 2003 Glyph Fiction Award and 2004 runner up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Commercial Fiction, The Light in the Labyrinth, her first young adult novel, and Falling Pomegranate Seeds: The Duty of Daughters.
While she continues to have a very close and spooky relationship with Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder, the serendipity of life now leaves her no longer wondering if she has been channeling Anne Boleyn and Sir Tom for years in her writing, but considering the possibility of ancestral memory. Her own family tree reveals the intriguing fact that her ancestors – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems very likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally.
Connect with Wendy
Website • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter • Goodreads
Thank you so much for hosting today's tour stop!
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