How I Write # 247: Cora Harrison

“What inspires me is a map – a very detailed map of the Burren by Tim Robinson. When I started MY LADY JUDGE I was intrigued by the mention of a law school at Cahermacnaghten and so my Brehon, or investigating magistrate, was born. Mara is thirty-six years old, a woman with a past, famous for having successfully conducted her own divorce case as a young lawyer aged sixteen; already a grandmother, but the object of the romantic interest of King Turlough Donn, lord of the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe and Burren (a real character in Irish history). Then I had to have other people in my story – obviously Doonyvarden had to have a bard living there (bharden is the genitive form of bard – I think!) and there were other place that evoked a character. Then I had to find a spot for my dead body and the idea of finding one in Wolf’s Lair on Mullaghmore Mountain appealed to me. I’ve written three books now and this is how I do it. I look at that very detailed map of the Burren, I select a location and then I weave the story around that location. For instance, for my next ‘Mara’ book I saw that Noughaval, a small settlement in the south of the Burren, has a medieval market cross still in existence. Just a mile down the road is a place marked Lios na nGamhan, the blacksmith’s enclosure. So I opened my story MICHAELMAS TRIBUTE with the fair at Noughaval on Michaelmas day, where Fintan the blacksmith is leading a revolt by the MacNamara clan against the unjust tribute demanded by the new chieftain. Similarly, with book three, STING OF JUSTICE, I was inspired by the words ‘site of medieval silver mine’ marked at the top of a mountain and, not too far away, ‘deserted medieval village’. Then at the bottom of the mountain was Newtown Castle, also built in the late medieval era. These three items slotted together very rapidly and I had the story of a cruel, rapacious mine owner, and silversmith, and his village of mine workers. So what is the future for Mara? Already I am eyeing the ruins of a medieval Cistercian abbey with its strangely beautiful carvings of the exquisite wild flowers of the area. And then there is the gigantic boulder, named on the map, intriguingly, as the rock of the fear Bréige (deceitful man), the site of a medieval flax mill and the traces of a great medieval racecourse. The hundred square miles of the Burren could spawn a hundred stories.”

The Best Things In Life Are Free … Books

Two competition giveaways for your delectation this week, folks. The first comes courtesy of those lovely people at St Martin’s, who are providing us with three copies of Cora Harrison’s MY LADY JUDGE, one of which can be yours if you just answer the following question:

Is Cora Harrison related to:
(a) George Harrison;
(b) Ringo Starr;
(c) Get off the pills, mate, they’re not doing you any good.

Answers to dbrodb(at)gmail.com, with ‘Get off the pills, mate’ in the subject line, before noon on Monday, November 5.
Meanwhile, the generous peeps at Michael Joseph / Penguin are offering three copies of Sue Walker’s latest novel, THE DEAD POOL, one of which can be yours if you can wangle Crime Always Pays’ Grand Vizier Declan Burke a date with Nicole Kidman. Nothing sleazy, just some candles, a little dinner, a gypsy violinist. Alternatively, you could answer the following question:

Is THE DEAD POOL Sue Walker’s:
(a) Third novel;
(b) Fourth novel;
(c) Oh fer Chrissakes just gimme a free book.

Answers to dbrodb(at)gmail.com, with ‘Oh fer Chrissakes’ in the subject line, before noon on Monday, November 5. Et bon chance, mes amis …

A Burrening Passion

“This charming book could be the start of a million-selling series,” reckoned the Evening Herald in its review of Cora Harrison’s MY LADY JUDGE, and the impending release of the novel on audio, with Caroline Lennon narrating, suggests that the Herald got it spot-on. For those of you wondering what the fuss is all about, here’s the skinny from the blurb elves:

In the sixteenth century, as it is now, the Burren, on the western seaboard of Ireland, was a land of grey stone forts, fields of rich green grass and swirling mountain terraces. It was also home to an independent kingdom that lived peacefully by the ancient Brehon laws of their forebears. On the first eve of May, 1509, hundreds of people from the Burren climbed the gouged-out limestone terraces of Mullaghmore Mountain to celebrate the great May Day festival, lighting a bonfire and singing and dancing through the night, then returning through the grey dawn to the safety of their homes. But one man did not come back down the steeply spiralling path. His body lay exposed to the ravens and wolves on the bare, lonely mountain for two nights ... and no one spoke of him, or told what they had seen. And when Mara, a woman appointed by King Turlough Don O’Brien to be judge and lawgiver to the stony kingdom, came to investigate, she was met with a wall of silence ...

Erm, maybe it’s just us, but practically every Irish woman we’ve ever met has been a ‘judge and lawgiver’. Or is it just us? Answers on the back of used €20 notes to the usual address …

On A Clare Day You Can See Forever

Here at Crime Always Pays, we’re particularly fond of Cora Harrison (right). Maybe it’s because her new novel, My Lady Judge, is set in the Burren in the beautiful County Clare, and we have fond memories of a childhood holiday spent in the Burren, when we leapt from one haystack onto another and only got semi-impaled on a buried pitchfork. Ah, those were the days. Or maybe it’s just because the rather lovely Ms Harrison is rather lovely, and lovely people are becoming a rarity these days. More importantly, Sarah Weinman seems to like Cora Harrison too, if her review in the Baltimore Sun is anything to go by:

“This enchanting historical mystery was first released in the United Kingdom last spring to rave reviews, which will only be echoed here. Harrison, a veteran novelist for children, steps into the adult realm with a confident voice, a strong heroine in the form of the eponymous Mara and an unusual-for-mystery realm in the form of an enclosed medieval kingdom off the coast of Ireland. The bloodthirsty justice administered by the barbaric English doesn’t apply as Mara educates her young charges in more civil applications of the law. That is, until her trusted assistant Colman disappears and is later found dead on the top of a mountain, and the kingdom’s seeming indifference reveals the victim’s duplicitous nature and the community’s web of secrets. Mara – who at 36 is both a grandmother and the object of romantic intentions – sifts through truth and lies with a combination of feminine intuition and well-reasoned deduction. The old-fashioned appeal of Harrison’s prose opens up a new world while harkening back to the way writers like Ellis Peters fashioned their historical mysteries.”

Very nice indeed, especially as it comes hard on the heels of the rather lovely Ms Harrison being nominated a ‘notable’ September release by the American Booksellers Association. Feel free to jump aboard, people – there’s a rather lovely bandwagon leaving these here parts …

Always Judge A Book By Its Judge

Keep a weather eye on Cora Harrison, people – her debut novel, My Lady Judge (released in the US on September 18), which centres on the medieval Irish Brehon judge Mara, has been nominated as a ‘notable’ September release by no less august an outfit than the American Booksellers Association. Cora, as you might imagine, is rather pleased by the development, to wit:

“The first time that I knew My Lady Judge had been picked by the American Booksellers Association for their September list of twenty ‘notables’ was when my agent in UK emailed me to say that he had just seen it on a magazine called ‘Publishers’ Lunch’. I must say that I was pretty excited. Although I am only nineteenth out of the twenty recommended books, it still was quite unexpected – especially given the number of books published every day in the States. The book will be out in a week’s time and then we’ll see how it goes. The American publishers, St Martin’s Press, are playing up its Irishness very much, with a Celtic-mist-type cover and a subtitle of ‘A Medieval Irish Mystery’. However, the book may not be what an American audience regards as ‘Irish’. Mara, my main character, is no Irish colleen, but a tough, practical woman with a degree of education which would be way beyond what is expected of lawyers nowadays. One of Queen Elizabeth 1’s fact-finders reported of the Brehons that they spoke Latin ‘as if it were their native tongue.’ I keep wondering how the intricacies of Brehon Law, and the fact that the judge is a woman, will go down in America. Personally, I think that Brehon Law is fascinating, especially with its emphasis on the rights of woman. One of my readers on Amazon UK said that she loved the bit where a woman could divorce her husband if he got too fat! Perhaps this would not be popular in America. However, I did see that the Poisoned Pen Mystery Bookshop wrote: ‘You have to read [My Lady Judge] to get the full impact of its charm. I predict a big US hit in September so beat the rush.’ It would be lovely if that comes true.”

And only slightly less lovely than the delightful Cora Harrison, if the truth be told.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 124: Cora Harrison

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael’s Penance. I love all of the Brother Cadfael series, but this one is so beautifully written with a slightly mournful elegiac note that it is my favourite. What lends it extra poignancy is that I think Ellis Peters was probably dying of cancer when she wrote it.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I’m not sure where the guilt comes – I’m retired and if I feel like reading, I read. I don’t watch much television, which mostly seems to be a lot of boring nonsense to me, and I have no pretensions to being an intellectual, so any book that captures my attention is a worthwhile read for me. My cottage is full of books so there is never a lack of material.
Most satisfying writing moment?
I’m not a wonderful writer, but I think the best thing I did was a final showdown between my detective, Mara, the Brehon, (judge), and the guilty person. I wrote a whole chapter without giving away the identity of the killer and I really enjoyed writing that.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
Probably Tana French’s In The Woods – rather disturbing for someone like me who likes her books to be cosy, but undoubtedly very powerfully written.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Would it be terrible to say that I think My Lady Judge would make a great movie? I think the Burren landscape is so unique and so little known, even to many people in Ireland, that I think it would make a wonderful film. If you have a look at www.coraharrison.com you will see what I mean about the landscape.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
The worst thing is how long it takes for a book to get published. I write very quickly and am always ahead of publishers’ deadlines, so when it comes to editing time I’m quite bored with the book and just interested in the one that I am currently writing. The best thing about being a writer is that it gives you a unique opportunity of creating your own world and this, I think, is what I have done in My Lady Judge. I keep thinking how much I would have liked to have lived then and how beautiful and peaceful life was – despite the odd murder.
Why does John Banville use a pseudonym for writing crime?
I don’t know, but I would guess that it is part of turning himself into a different person so that he can write in a different style. I read once of a woman who wrote under two names, and she used to have two computers, each in a different room, and this helped her to have a distinctive voice for both series.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
History, mystery and romance.

Cora Harrison’s My Lady Judge is available in all good bookshops now

Always Judge A Book By Its Judge: Cora Harrison

Cora Harrison's My Lady Judge will be published Stateside in October: "a likeable protagonist, a clever mystery, and a richly textured rendering of sixteenth-century Ireland with its fascinating legal system," reckons Brenda Rickman Vantrease (The Mercy Seller). Harrison is a self-confessed fan of Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael books, and My Lady Judge, set in the Burren during the 16th Century, incorporates a feminine take on Brehon Law. Jump over here for an interview with the lady herself, or here for an extract from the novel ...