Secret History Thriller, Historical Fantasy, Supernatural Thriller, Speculative Fiction.
Date Published: 28/01/2019
Publisher: Matador
It is 1761. Prussia is at war with Russia and Austria.
As the Russian army occupies East Prussia, King Frederick the Great and his men fight hard to win back their homeland.
In Ludwigshain, a Junker estate in East Prussia, Countess Marion von Adler celebrates an exceptional harvest. But it is requisitioned by Russian troops. When Marion tries to stop them, a Russian captain strikes her. His lieutenant, Ian Fermor, defends Marion’s honour and is stabbed for his insubordination. Abandoned by the Russians, Fermor becomes a divisive figure on the estate.
Close to death, Fermor dreams of the Adler, a numinous eagle entity, whose territory extends across the lands of Northern Europe and which is mysteriously connected to the Enlightenment. What happens next will change of the course of human history…
Hello
Justin and welcome to A Life Through Books. Thanks so much for stopping by
today to talk about The Coronation!
My
pleasure, thanks for having me along, Everleigh.
Please
tell us about yourself and your writing.
I
have a research degree. I get on with research, it’s what I do. I enjoy
discovery, especially of history and people whose works shed a light on the
human condition. I explore how and why we have inherited the society we live in
today.
I
write secret history thrillers; that’s history with a supernatural twist. I
take historical events and real historical personages, especially those that
were seminal in shaping the human condition, and I examine them through a
supernatural lens. This yields a different explanation to the one we have been
told for why those events happened, and why those people did what they
did.
What
inspired you to write The Coronation?
In
a post-industrial society, we are dominated by technology. But why? How did we
end up like this? Is this how it was meant to be, where human development and
evolution are concerned? These are other questions inspired me to write The
Coronation.
What research did you undertake when writing The Coronation?
The
main character of The Coronation is Marion, Countess von Adler. She is
based on a real-life personage, Marion, Countess von Dönhoff who lived at a
Junker family estate at Castle Friedrichstein near Löwenhagen, East Prussia
(see photograph). For reasons of discretion, I changed the name to Castle
Ludwigshain.
Much
of the inner detail in the novel is derived from the real Countess’
autobiography, Before the Storm: Memories of My Youth in Old Prussia (tr.
by Jean Steinberg. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990). Although she lived during the 20th
Century, I was able to add a rare touch of authenticity to my novel. It allowed
me to enter her pre-Second World War world and imagine what it might have been
like to live on the Friedrichstein estate during the 18th Century,
especially since very little had changed on her estate since then.
What
was your favorite scene to write?
One
scene I enjoyed writing was based around by the famous Hieronymus Bosch
painting, Cutting the Stone. It’s also called The Extraction of the
Stone of Madness or The Cure of Folly.
This
painting aptly summarized one of the novel’s main themes, notably the blurred
line between sanity and madness in human affairs. The imagery was also a launch
pad in the novel to explore the meaning and significance of the Medieval
medical practice of trepanning.
The
words at the top of the painting read ‘Master, cut the stone out, fast.’ And at the bottom. ‘My
name is Lubbert Das.’ The latter was the name of a fool in Dutch literature.
What
was the most difficult scene to write?
The
ending. I think I must have written three or four versions before I was content
that it tied up the threads of the plot in a satisfactory way, and which
brought the main character arcs to a successful completion.
What
would you like readers to take away from reading The Coronation?
To
ask themselves questions such as…
We
are Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which is Latin for man-the-doubly-wise. If
that’s the case, then how come we are not displaying that same wisdom today?
If
the Great Enlightenment was when we were meant to begin that spiritual journey,
what happened to it?
Where
did the promise of that enlightenment go? Where did it end up?
And
why are we so fascinated by and dependent on technology?
Where
will it all end?
About the Author
Justin Newland is an author of historical fantasy and secret history thrillers – that’s history with a supernatural twist. His historical novels feature known events and real people from the past, which are re-told and examined through the lens of the supernatural.
His novels speculate on the human condition and explore the fundamental questions of our existence. As a species, as Homo sapiens sapiens – that’s man the twice-wise – how are we doing so far? Where is mankind’s spiritual home? What does it look or feel like? Would we recognise it if we saw it?
Undeterred by the award of a Doctorate in Mathematics from Imperial College, London, he found his way to the creative keyboard and conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.
Next came the supernatural thriller, The Old Dragon’s Head (Matador, 2018), set in Ming Dynasty China.
His third novel, The Coronation (Matador, 2019), speculates on the genesis of the most important event of the modern world – the Industrial Revolution.
His fourth, The Abdication (Matador, 2021), is a supernatural thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith.
His stories add a touch of the supernatural to history and deal with the themes of war, religion, evolution and the human’s place in the universe.
He was born three days before the end of 1953 and lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.
Contact Links
Twitter: @Matador
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Author’s Website (where buyers can enter a dedication to be signed by the author):
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