The Sunne in Splendour, reborn

I’d hoped to have good news to announce, for today was supposed to be the birth of When Christ and his Saints Slept as an e-book in the UK at long last. But there has been an unexpected delay, fortunately not for long; the new launch date is the 28th of February.
The 1000 pages of the Sunne galley proofs arrived yesterday, landing with a house-shuddering thud on my porch. I took a deep breath and plunged in. I’d not read Sunne in its entirety for a number of years, so it is a great relief that it seems to be holding up so far. I’ve just reached the part where the bombshell news of Edward’s secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville Grey has become known. How different history would have been if only Edward had not developed an itch that only Elizabeth could scratch. He’d probably have married the French princess whose marriage Warwick had been negotiating on his behalf. I suspect he and Warwick would still have had a falling-out; there was not enough room in England for two such strong-willed men. But it might not have come to rebellion. Imagine if there’d been no Woodvilles intruding upon the English stage. Would Edward still have drunk and whored his way to such an early grave? Would Richard have lived out his days as the king’s right hand, the Lord of the North? Would Edward have lived long enough to see a son by that French princess established on the throne? Would the Plantagenet dynasty continued on for another three hundred years or longer? No Tudors, no Elizabeth, no break with the Catholic Church, no Stuarts, no Hanovers, maybe even no American Revolution? . Contemplating such seismic changes to the fabric of history is enough to make our heads spin. Could so much be different if only Edward had never crossed paths with the lovely widow Grey? Who knows? It does remind me, though, of a line from The Lion in Winter, when Eleanor is explaining that she’d not have divorced Louis if she’d given him sons instead of daughters and she concludes, “Such, my darlings, is the role that sex plays in history.” That might be a slight paraphrase, as I haven’t seen the film lately, but it is close enough.
I have been presented with an opportunity to do something I never expected I’d be able to do: make some minor revisions to Sunne. The one complaint I’ve heard over the years about it, especially from British readers, is that the dialogue jarred at times, that it seemed as if I were trying too hard for pseudo-medieval speech. In time, I came to agree with them. Sunne was my first novel, so it was a learning experience in many ways, and dialogue has always been a fine balancing act for historical novelists. With my subsequent novels, I developed certain rules. I avoid Hollywood clichés whenever possible; nowhere in one of my books will you find a knight crying, “Unhand that wench, you varlet!” Obviously, I do not use contemporary slang. I also try to stay away from words that could ring false to modern ears, even if such words were actually known in the MA; adolescent is a perfect example. I keep contractions to a minimum. I occasionally will toss in a word or phrase that still sounds vaguely medieval—fetch, tarry, behest. And so when some of you buy the new British hardcover edition of Sunne in September, you’ll find that I’ve woven these minor changes into the book’s fabric—seamlessly, I hope!
I am also going to correct any mistakes that I stumble onto. We were able to catch the infamous grey squirrel for the paperback editions of Sunne, but that time-traveling little creature remains entrapped in the US and UK hardback editions for all eternity. Well, I will make sure that he does not pop up again. No longer will readers find a fox with black eyes. No one will be sitting on a bale of hay. Of course what I would love to do is to offer the real explanation for the discrepancy between Richard’s shoulders; in Sunne, I went with a childhood fall in which he broke his shoulder. Now we know better, but unfortunately there is no way I could introduce scoliosis into the storyline; too much rewriting and not enough time. If only!