Hank Phillippi Ryan: Okay, cutting to the chase. Isn't this a great cover? It's instant suspense, and you know there's a dilemma, a major choice, a desire, and whoever it is--is trying to find an answer through magic.
I am so happy to see this! I critiqued Holly West's manuscript at CrimeBake ( I have no memory of what I said, specifically, but I know I liked it, a lot!) and now her debut MISTRESS OF FORTUNE is now out from Harlequin's Carina Press! Hurray!
She has an incredibly interesting take on a certain group of women--in fact, she wonders if they might be
The First Feminists?
HOLLY WEST: My debut historical mystery, Mistress of Fortune, is set in late 17th century London
and features amateur sleuth Isabel Wilde, a mistress to King Charles II who
secretly makes her living as a fortuneteller.
(HANK: Ooh. See?)
In truth, she’s a more of a charlatan.
(HANK: Ooh, even better, right?)
In her world, women have few enough advantages and she’s more than willing to
make the most of those that she has; namely, cleverness, beauty and good
intuition.
I chose fortunetelling as her profession, not because of a
personal belief that fortunetellers and the like possess a supernatural ability
to predict the future or see the “other side,” but because I’m fascinated by the
cultural traditions of soothsayers and healers, particularly “wise women.”
During a time when medical science was in its infancy and only the rich could
afford a physician, wise women were a valuable source of knowledge for the 17th
century housewife, especially in rural areas.
They acted as doctors, midwives,
counselors, and caregivers. They were, in many ways, feminists before their
time.
Though Isabel Wilde isn’t exactly a wise woman, she does recommend
various healing herbs and concoctions to her customers and offers sincere, practical
advice when she can.
If most women came to these professions with honest
intentions, there were some whose motivations were not so pure. In my research,
I came upon a French woman named Catherine Monvoisin (c. 1640-1680), nicknamed La Voisin. When her husband’s career as
a jeweler went south, she turned to fortunetelling to support her family. While
her paranormal abilities as a soothsayer might have been in question, her
business acumen was not; she paid strict attention to her visitors’ requests
and expanded her offerings to take advantage of their desires.
She sold amulets
filled with such mystical items as bones of toads, the dust of human remains,
teeth of moles and Spanish fly. She prescribed “magic” rituals and arranged
black masses so that her customers could worship the devil. She practiced
medicine and midwifery, and performed abortions. Eventually, she began peddling poison.
La Voisin’s
predecessor, Guilia Tofana, had perfected the science of poison twenty years
earlier. She was an Italian woman who developed an odorless, tasteless poison
(likely a solution of arsenic) labeled Aqua
Tofana to sell to women who wanted to murder their husbands. Perhaps her
conscience was eased by the fact that her customers were mainly women ensnared
in abusive marriages, but when she was finally apprehended, she confessed (under
torture) to killing more than six hundred men with her poison.
Both La Voisin and
Tofana were immensely popular, so much so that when the papal authority called
for Tofana’s arrest, a local church granted her sanctuary. La Voisin had many members of the aristocracy among her clients and
became very rich as a result of her business. In the end, however, both women
were executed; Tofana was put to death in the Campo di Fiori in Rome in 1659 and La Voisin was convicted of witchcraft and burnt in public at the Place de Greve in Paris on February 22,
1680.
Wicked as they may have been, these women were savvy and
made their way in a society that often treated females no better than
livestock. Given the circumstances, I’m not sure this is something to be
celebrated, but their stories are
interesting.
My heroine, Isabel Wilde, isn’t based on either La Voisin or Guilia Tofana, but the
soothsayer who trained Isabel in the art of fortunetelling, Mary Bixby, is. But
at heart, Isabel and Mary are both good people. It’s just that they understand
their lot in life and can’t help pushing against their constraints. And, as
crime fiction aficionados like us know, sometimes, that leads to murder.
HANK: And now you're hooked, right? And what're your thoughts on "women's intuition"?
A copy of MISTRESS OF FORTUNE to one lucky commenter! (US only, please.)
************************************
Holly West is the author of the Mistress of Fortune series (Carina Press). The first in the series, Mistress
of Fortune, was published in February 2014 and the second, Mistress of Lies, will be released in
Fall 2014. She’s currently writing her third book, a stand-alone crime novel
set in 1948 Philadelphia. Holly lives, reads, and writes in Los Angeles with
her husband, Mick, and dog, Stella.
Mistress of Fortune
Synopsis:
Isabel, Lady Wilde, a mistress
to King Charles II, has a secret: she makes her living disguised as Mistress
Ruby, a fortune-teller who caters to London’s elite. It’s a dangerous life
among the charlatans, rogues and swindlers who lurk in the city’s dark corners,
but to Isabel, the risk is worth the reward.
Until magistrate Sir Edmund
Godfrey seeks Mistress Ruby’s counsel and reveals his unwitting involvement in
a plot to kill the king. When Isabel’s diary containing dangerous details of
his confession is stolen, she knows she must find it before anyone connects her
to Mistress Ruby. Especially after Sir Edmund’s corpse is discovered a few days
later…
Isabel is sure that whoever
stole her diary is Sir Edmund’s killer—and could be part of a conspiracy that
leads all the way to the throne. But as she delves deeper into the mystery, not
even the king himself may be able to save her.
