Recently Rated:
Stats
I was taught history the old, boring, way of memorizing lists of king and prime ministers, battle dates, and significant eras of change such as the Renaissance only to forget them immediately after the test.
And yet, I had a fascination with the bygone eras. How did they impact who we are and what we do in the twenty-first century? Have we changed or are people still basically people with the same hopes and fears but just with different technologies and toys?
My answer was found in the great historical fiction produced by people like Ken Follett, Mary Stewart, Conn Iggulden, Bernard Cornwell, Edith Pargeter (author of the Brother Cadfael series under the pen name Ellis Peters) and so many others. Through them, I learned that people are the same yet are different through the ages—more through circumstances and eras than through personality.
Reading wasn’t enough. I had to write historical fiction.
I can tell you from experience that writing historical fiction is hard. Researching everything from locations, to clothing, to speech, to food and drink is both painstaking and frustrating. I had to understand how they lived and where, and how they lived and worked in the society they did with the political, economic and societal pressures of that day. Books, articles, location visits, all became part of my engagement with these people. I poked around old, ruined abbeys and castles. I read through archive materials and spent days visiting various museums. I needed to “live” there in my heart and mind and experience what they did as much as possible.
My latest novel, Musick for the King , is pure historical fiction. It lives and moves in a short period of time in the mid-1700s when George Frederick Handel wrote Messiah and the aftermath that ensued. I am humbled by the positive reviews and response. I visited the Handel House in London, Dublin Castle, Fishamble Street in Dublin and toured through the beautiful Wicklow County in Ireland. I listened to, watched and heard in person, Handel’s great masterpiece Messiah . I have felt Handel’s rejection and suffered his doubts.
Prior to that I dabbled in historical fiction, trying to bring real times and places to life along with sometimes real sometimes imagined individuals and then contrasting them with our modern age. The stories picked up ancient myths and legends and asked “what if” those stories were real and what impact would it have today. I titled these novels “ The Oak Grove Conspiracies ” and up to now there have been three books in that series: The Excalibur Parchment, The Lucifer Scroll and The Prince Madoc Secret.
Again, the response and reviews for all three have been generous and overwhelming. My characters and situations in all the books have been well received. Indeed, I originally planned that it would be a trilogy. However, the response has been so positive that readers in Canada, the US, Australia and the UK have requested a continuation of the story.
So, I am back at work. This time, I was intrigued by the fact that US President Thomas Jefferson (himself of Welsh heritage) sent Capt. Merriweather Lewis (also Welsh) off on a journey of discovery across the unknown American West. Together with his partner, the Lewis and Clarke expedition made history. But there was an added dollop of intrigue and mystery. Lewis committed suicide—with many claiming he was murdered—as he returned to Washington with the final documented report of the expedition. Given that one of his mandates from Jefferson was to seek proof of Welsh-speaking natives of which many stories abounded, it raised a lot of questions. Did he find such proof? Was he killed to prevent that news from becoming public? Were such natives in fact the descendants of Prince Madoc, the Welsh prince who took colonists to America in 1170?
I am enjoying exploring this story further and creating the worlds and situations I am writing about. This one will be book four of the series and mix both the historical and modern eras.
For those interested, I have attached the prologue as a teaser. Where does the story go from here? How do Stone, Mandy and the rest handle it? With the Druids all but destroyed organizationally, who will stop them from finding the truth and finding the relics that were so carefully hidden?
Read on, if you wish!
Download the free sample below:
 | Dragon Legacy teaser |
| Dragon legacy teaser.docx, 17KB ∞ |
Welsh legend highlights latest novel
Three hundred years before Christopher Columbus set foot in his family bathtub, a Prince of Wales gathered together a group of followers and sailed across the Atlantic to arrive in Mobile Bay, Alabama. Prince Madoc of Gwynedd’s legend began and is the heart of The Prince Madoc Secret, the third book in Midland area author Barrie Doyle’s highly rated series, The Oak Grove Conspiracies.
Previous books looked at the legend of King Arthur ( The Excalibur Parchment ) and the legend of the Spear of Destiny ( The Lucifer Scroll ). Barrie will be signing the newly-released novel at Georgian Bay Books in downtown Midland on Saturday, May 19 between 1 and 3 p.m. Other book signings across Canada are scheduled as is the North American Festival of Wales in Washington DC on the Labor Day weekend.
Legend says after arriving in Mobile Bay, Prince Madoc and his followers followed the American continent’s river systems and disappeared into the mists of history, leaving behind intriguing glimpses of their presence including stone villages modeled after Welsh towns, and stone fortresses such as those found in north-west Georgia found high on a promontory after the Welsh fashion and unlike anything the indigenous people had built before.
One of the more persistent stories described a Welsh-speaking tribe in the heart of the continent. It was a legend so strong and a story so believed that US President Thomas Jefferson made finding the tribe one of the mandates of the famed Lewis and Clarke Expedition. In the 1950’s, the Daughters of the American Revolution even placed a plaque commemorating Madoc’s landing, on one of the barrier islands at the mouth of Mobile Bay.
While each of the three novels is a stand-alone story, the same protagonists are the main thread between the books. From the valleys of South Wales to the famed Yns Mons/Anglesey and Snowdonia in the north, Wales is a featured setting. But the books travel beyond Wales to Venice, Istanbul, Washington and London as well as parts of the American West and the famed Georgian Bay area of Canada. The stories also roll across time, from a fourteenth-century Welsh abbey in the south, to twelfth-century Gwynnedd in the north, and to Constantinople, Jerusalem and Nazi Germany the stories whip readers on an exciting, nail-biting journey.
Reviewers and readers have compared Doyle’s books to Ken Follett, Tom Clancy and Steve Berry for their unique blending of history and legend into modern-day thrillers. “It reads like an epic movie,” one reviewer for the UC Observer noted, while another with the radio program “Arts Connection” concluded, “this action-packed tale will leave you breathless and reading until the wee hours of the morning, wondering what happens next.”
The books are available from Chapters/Indigo in Canada and online from Amazon, Barnes and Noble (US) and Waterstones (UK) as well as independent bookstores across North America.
-30-
Contact: Barrie Doyle,
T 705-533-0361; C 705-209-3137; excaliburparchment@gmail.com
Sample reviews
The Prince Madoc Secret (May 2018)
I kept reading and telling myself, “okay, just half an hour more and then take a break”. No breaks. I really got pulled in. I have found many authors have one or two good books in them, but they continue to write more. You, however have improved. While I thoroughly enjoyed the first two, Madoc is clearly the best”.
The Excalibur Parchment & The Lucifer Scroll
A delight to read. (Doyle’s) tale of the sword is convincing and realistic. It reads like an epic movie.
June Stevenson, fmr. editor United Church Observer
It’s a fun read, almost cinematic in scope with one accelerating scene after another. (There’s) rich atmosphere in the rough and tumble of the good guys, the Welsh monastery and the Welsh Valleys, and the lagoons of modern day Venice. Look forward to the sequel
Bruce Rogers, CBC Radio
What a great read! The plot is thick and surprising. I’m a picky reader and this one is as good as Tom Clancy!
Dr. Doug Davis, Eastern Illinois University
Barrie Doyle has woven a distant past with a very dangerous present. Mystery, adventure and sacrifice planted in ancient times causes a frightening modern conflict. You’re going to enjoy this book. It is a fresh telling of one of the great myths of western culture.
Coleman Luck, Hollywood Screenwriter, TV producer, (The Equalizer)
and author, (Angel Fall)
This action packed tale will leave you breathless and reading until the wee hours of the morning, wondering what happens next!
Robert White, host “Arts Connection” 103.3 FM
(It) reminds me of Ken Follett. Fast paced. Deep local colour, plausible characters and a unique story line. A satisfying and illuminating readd
Kirk Vanderzande, Toronto Today
“I’ve never read anything Arthurian, but we were given this book as a gift and read it aloud as a family. We were immediately swept into another world that we found absolutely irresistible. Each chapter left us craving for more, anxious for the next time we could imbibe in this feast of words. Written almost like a screenplay for a thriller, we loved all the rich colourful details that transported us from one epic scene to another. The second book is on our Christmas list, and we can hardly wait. This book, and likely the rest in the series, must certainly be made into movies.
Josh Tiessen, artist
"The reader hops from country to country in a nail-biting drama that pulls back the curtain on the little-known historical facts surrounding one of Hitler’s obsessions. Here, fact is more intriguing than fiction and makes The Lucifer Scroll one of those books you can’t put down. I keep waiting for the militia to come to the rescue of the weak and end the tension but it goes on. I sense a parallel to the events of history today. Perhaps the sequel will tell all or leave me wondering."
Lloyd Knight, Roundtable Assoc.
I have just read Barrie Doyle's latest book The Lucifer Scroll . It is excellent. moves fast and never drags. It is a follow on to T he Excalibur Parchment, another excellent book. The Lucifer Scroll is about a conflict between Druids who follow ancient practices and traditions, and the Christian Church and Christian beliefs. The story is action backed with narrow escapes and intrigue. It moves rapidly between America, Canada, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Wales and England. I highly recommend both books to those interested in mysteries involving ancient history, especially the history of England and Wales.
Gwenith Cosgrove,
Great Plains Welsh Heritage Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska
The reader hops from country to country in a nail-biting drama that pulls back the curtain on the little-known historical facts surrounding one of Hitler’s obsessions. Here, fact is more intriguing than fiction and makes The Lucifer Scroll one of those books you can’t put down. I keep waiting for the militia to come to the rescue of the weak and end the tension but it goes on. I sense a parallel to the events of history today. Perhaps the sequel will tell all or leave me wondering."
Sandra White
What a great story! Now I am anxious to read the "Lucifer" book and was delighted to get "Madoc" already. Thank you.
You are a creative, interesting writer! What a lot of research that must have taken, too. Will we meet Stone and Mandy again?
Amy Farrell
Gulf Coast Welsh Society, Sarasota, Florida
