A
young writer becomes entangled in an illicit gypsy love affair,
pulling her into a world of secrets, deception and dark desire.
Summer,
1976. Luz de Rueda returns to her beloved Spain and takes a job as
the biographer of a famous artist. On her first day back in Cádiz,
she encounters a bewitching, passionate young gypsy, Leandro, who
immediately captures her heart, even though relationships with his
kind are taboo. Haunted by this forbidden love, she meets her new
employer, the sophisticated Andrés de Calderón. Reserved yet darkly
compelling, he is totally different to Leandro but almost the gypsy’s
double. Both men stir unfamiliar and exciting feelings in Luz,
although mystery and danger surround them in ways she has still to
discover.
Luz
must decide what she truly desires as glistening Cádiz, with its
enigmatic moon and whispering turquoise shores, seeps back into her
blood. Why is she so drawn to the wild and magical sea gypsies? What
is behind the old fortune-teller’s sinister warnings about
‘Gemini’? Through this maze of secrets and lies, will Luz finally
find her happiness… or her ruin?
Masquerade is
a story of forbidden love, truth and trust. Are appearances always
deceptive?
Hannah
Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career
were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an
agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told,
Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later –
following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling
in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two
beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah
decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was
now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in
Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances
overlooking breath-taking views of the Mediterranean.
To
date, Hannah has published four novels: Burning Embers,
‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; the
award-winning Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is
beautifully told’ set in Italy; and Indiscretion and
Masquerade (from the Andalusian Nights Trilogy), her fieriest
novels yet. She is currently working on her forthcoming book, Legacy,
the final title in the trilogy, which is due to be published in
spring 2016.
1.
If you could work with any other author, who would it be and why?
I
think I would choose Lawrence Durell: not only a wonderful writer and
poet, but also a great traveller who, like myself, considered himself
a cosmopolitan person rather than belonging to one country. He had a
great sense of humour and a good, although rather cynical, knowledge
of human nature.
2.
What would be a typical working day for you? When and where do you
write?
I
write every day. Writing is my life and also a job – a very
enjoyable job.
I
wake up very early, and do my chores first thing. After a cup of
passion-fruit tea, in the morning I start off by looking at my online
marketing on Twitter and Facebook for an hour or so. Then most days I
sit at my desk and work through the day, with an hour for lunch and
errands. I take some time in the afternoon for a long walk when I’m
dreaming up a plot.
In
my home in Kent, I write in a wood-panelled room,
surrounded by books – we call it the library. In France, I
write overlooking the most fabulous view of the Mediterranean from a
large picture window in my bedroom, or if it is not too hot, outside
in our gazebo. I really can’t complain!
3.
What is the hardest part of the writing for you?
The
most challenging parts for me when I write are the opening paragraph
and the closing paragraph. The first must encourage the reader to
continue his or her journey into the novel, to want to get to know
the characters and their story; and the second must leave the reader
with a feeling of contentment and maybe a tinge of melancholy because
the voyage has come to an end and it is as if he or she is saying
farewell to a friend. I write and rewrite those two paragraphs many
times!
4.
When and why did you first start writing?
Stories
and writing have always been part of my life. My father was a great
raconteur and my governess used to tell the most fabulous fairy
stories – I could listen to them for hours. When I was seven she
and I came to an agreement: for every story she’d tell me, I would
invent one in return. That is how my passion for storytelling began.
At
school I consistently received first prize for my essays and my
teachers often read them aloud in class. As a teenager I used to
write short romantic stories during lessons and circulate them in
class, which made me very popular with my peers (but less so with the
nuns!). In addition, since a young age I have kept some sort of a
diary where I note my feelings, ideas and things that take my fancy
(or not).
My
grandmother was a published author of poetry and my father published
a book about the history of our family, so writing runs in my veins.
I guess I always knew that one day I would follow in those footsteps
and forge my own path in that field – a subconscious dream which
finally came true.
5.
How did you come up with the idea for your book?
The
hero Leandro was a face in a crowd of gypsies on a beach in France
that triggered my imagination and was the muse for this story. He was
in my mind throughout the writing; if only he knew how he had haunted
and inspired me!
6.
Are you a big reader? If so, what are you reading now?
Yes,
I am never without a book. I read an eclectic mix of genres, but of
course romance is my favourite. I am currently reading – and very
much enjoying – The
Other Daughter by
Lauren Willig, which is a historical romance full of passion and
revenge. In due course I will write a review of the book for my blog,
www.hannahfielding.net.
7.
Do you have any advice for other aspiring writers?
First
and foremost, write from the heart. Be true to yourself and
don’t compromise to please the market. Markets change, fads come
and go; your work will remain.
Read,
reread and reread. Edit, edit, edit. Go through your
manuscript again and again and edit it. I know that it will break
your heart to delete a phrase or even one word you have spent time
agonising over, but sometimes less is better than more. Not easy
advice to follow, but in the long run it does work. If you
can leave the manuscript alone for a few weeks and revisit it at a
later date, reading it as if it were someone else’s, then that’s
even better.
Do
not get discouraged. Continue to write whether you think your
work is good or bad. There is no bad writing. There are good days and
bad days. The more you write, the better at it you get.
Excerpt
Luz
set eyes on him for the first time from her seat on Zeyna’s back as
the fine white Arab mare stepped down the narrow path from the cliff
that led to the beach. He was sitting on the edge of the track,
leaning nonchalantly against a wild carob tree,watching her while
chewing on a sprig of heather. As she drew nearer, she met his steady
gaze, spirited and wild. At that moment she had no idea this man
would have the power to change her world and create such havoc in her
heart, that she would emerge from the experience a different person.
Fate had not yet lit up the winding pathway of her life nor the
echoes of history along it, but now, in front of this stranger, a
disturbing awareness leapt into flame deep inside her and began to
flicker intensely. Without thinking, she tugged on Zeyna’s reins to
slow the mare down.
For
a moment they stared at each other. He was clearly a gitano, one of
those people that Luz’s family had always warned her to steer clear
of. The frayed, cut-down denims sat low on his hips, revealing deeply
tanned, muscular long legs, and his feet were bare as though he had
just walked straight from the beach. Unruly chestnut hair, bleached
golden in parts by the sun, tumbled to his shoulders; his smooth
copper skin glowed more than that of any gypsy she had ever seen. As
she allowed her gaze to flick back to his face, Luz caught the flash
of amused, provocative arrogance in those bright, burning eyes, mixed
with something deeper that she didn’t understand. She swallowed.
The overwhelming masculinity of the gitano unsettled her. Luz lifted
her chin resolutely, but felt the pull of his magnetism reaching out
and gripping her, beguiling and dangerous, so that instinctively she
nudged her mount and they broke into a smooth canter. The thumping of
her heart sounded loud in her ears. She could sense his eyes on her,
as a palpable touch, even as she rode away, trembling, and the
feeling remained with her until she knew she was out of sight.
Had
Zeyna picked up her mistress’s inner turmoil? Luz was pulling on
her bridle as the mare tossed her head this way and that, snorting.
Surprised by the horse’s unusual behaviour, Luz looked down at her
hands and realized that she was clutching the reins much too tightly.
She relaxed her hold. ‘I’m sorry, old girl. My fault,’ she
whispered, leaning forward to pat the mare’s neck. Feeling free,
the handsome creature surged forth without hesitation. The wind
blew warm and salty; it touched Luz’s long black hair like a
caress, threatening and tantalizing, wrapping a few silky wisps
around her face. An unusual heat coursed through her, even though she
was dressed only in a T-shirt, jeans tucked into riding boots. She
raised her head against the breeze, letting the briny air course over
her body, willing it to drive away this unfamiliar disquiet from her
mind.
Gradually
her sense of foreboding subsided and the awesome setting regained its
hold. She felt an exhilaration and breadth of freedom in the vast
solitude of the deserted beach and the wide horizons of the sea. The
intense blue of the bay lay before her in the late afternoon sun. The
lines of the land were so recognizable to her: no trees, no shrubs,
no delicate tinting nor soft beauty, but a pure, distinct outline of
form, almost terrifying in its austerity. Then, from time to time,
there were the shadows of great clouds moving overhead, staining this
infinite expanse of dunes that stretched before her like a vast
tapestry, in shades of cream, greys and silver. Galloping in the wind
on the back of her beautiful white mare, Luz felt in harmony with the
AndalucÃan landscape and with herself. She had left her flat in
Chelsea, finished her job in Scotland, and now she was back in Spain,
a newly born post-Franco Spain, ruled by an energetic young king, and
teetering on the edge of new possibilities. She was back at last in
her beloved country, this time to stay.
Luz
MarÃa Cervantes de Rueda was the only child to Count Salvador
Cervantes de Rueda and his beautiful half-English, half-Spanish wife,
Alexandra. At the time, their love story had made newspaper headlines
and had been a favoured subject for wagging tongues in the drawing
rooms of Spanish society. There had been a scandal involving Count
Salvador, a young gypsy girl and her ne’er-do-well brothers. To add
to the gossip, Alexandra de Falla was not from a pure Spanish
background. Her foreign ways had caused suspicion and disapproval
among the cloistered circles, their traditions still so deeply rooted
in 1950s AndalucÃa. The fact that she was a romantic novelist, too,
had caused many raised eyebrows. Some predicted doom when the
couple’s fairy-tale marriage was announced, but as in all fairy
tales, the pair had surprised everyone and were still living happily
ever after.
For
the first eleven years of her life Luz had lived in Spain, spending
July and August in Kent with her Great-Aunt Geraldine. Later, when
she was sent to boarding school in Gloucestershire, she would return
three times a year to El Pavón, the ancestral home of her father
outside the city of Jerez: at Christmas, Easter and for part of the
summer holidays.
Luz
had just arrived in Cádiz that morning, straight from England. She
intended to spend at least a week at L’Estrella, the family’s
summer house, before going on to see her parents at El Pavón. She
was excited, pulsing with life, feeling as though she was on the
verge of embarking on a great adventure.
It
had been a long haul that had started with Cheltenham Ladies’
College when she was eleven, through a master’s degree in history
and modern languages at Cambridge, and finally two years spent in the
Highlands of Scotland penning the biography of an ancestor for one of
the great families of Britain. Now that book was delivered, she could
feel that Spain was where she was meant to be, where she was always
meant to be. Here, she could breathe, feel her body come alive under
the Spanish sun, and let all the pent-up, reckless instincts she had
tried so hard to tame all through boarding school in England run wild
and free. Luz had never thought that those compulsive feelings she
had were the secret machinations of ‘destiny’; there was a
sceptical, no-nonsense side to her inherited from her mother, along
with a talent for writing, but she knew that the fiery Spanish nature
that was her father’s – and always got the better of her – had
finally pulled her back to AndalucÃa.
Only
that morning, when Luz had arrived at L’Estrella laden with
suitcases, Carmela handed her a letter that had come the day before.
Ever since she had replied to an advertisement in the local paper for
a biographer, she’d been praying for an interview. And here it was:
a letter inviting her for a first meeting that week. Luz had barely
been able to contain her relief and joy as she pulled the housekeeper
into a delighted hug. She had really set her heart on this job, not
only because she would be writing about Count Eduardo Raphael Ruiz de
Salazar, one of the great painters of modern Spain, but also because
the artist was from this part of the world and a large portion of the
research would be done locally in Cádiz and its neighbouring towns.
It seemed that now Luz had been given her reason to stay.
She
brought Zeyna to a halt at the edge of the shore. The wild salty air
seemed to be sweeping up from the beach as it brushed her cheek. She
closed her eyes to savour its breath, delicious odours laden with
iodine and fruits of the deep. The sun was setting in the late
afternoon and the sky, gloriously mottled with apricot-pink and
lilac, was broken here and there by shafts of light reflecting on the
surface of the water, turning the calm ocean into a spectrum of
peacock colours.
Now
she could make out the fishing boats in the distance returning after
a day’s work: black toy insects, the antennae of their masts
bristling against the flamingo-tinted sky. Gulls and terns mingled
overhead, screeching, impatient for the laden fleet’s arrival. Luz
did not care much for birds. She found them – even the beautiful
ones – eerie and menacing. It was time to be starting back.
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