Twee?

(Note: this post contains spoilers of  The Gisborne Saga.)

Most of my reviews are excellent, between 4.5 and 5 stars, but recently a reviewer  remarked of Gisborne: Book of Kings that the ending was twee. She still gave me a high star ranking for which I am very grateful, but I’m guessing she didn’t like the way in which the story was resolved… Ysabel meets the man who saved her husband, an outlaw who is one of the most famous outlaws in history or legend, or both.

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No one knows for sure if Robin Hood actually existed. Certainly there are many arguments for his existence in at least two timeframes. But the common view is that he is a legendary character, one who caught the imagination of the average man.

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So if Hood was legendary then surely Guy of Gisborne, his nemesis, was as well. I wrote The Gisborne Saga as an alternative view of Gisborne – what might have happened if the cards had fallen differently. And there was a fighting if faint chance that he may meet Robin of Locksley at some point.

I remember writing the conclusion long before I had reached that stage in the novel. It was one evening very late and as often happens, my story took hold of me and it wrote the ending itself. I remember thinking that this takes the legend, or history if you prefer, in a neat circle. To me, the writer, it seemed right. I was paying homage to the legend that had fed my series in the very first instance. I ‘saved’ the chapter, and placed it in a safe place, ready to see if it flowed on from the second last chapter in the way I hoped it would. For me, it did. It said what I wanted it to say at the time.

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And one can presume anything after it. That Gisborne ‘turns’, becoming the nemesis that is familiar, if one wants. Those of us who know my Gisborne though, will no doubt think otherwise. That he will go back to Venice with his family, that he will become even more successful in his intelligence enterprise, that he might become a merchant. The world can be his for the taking.

To me it was the ending that I as the author chose to write. It led me quite neatly out of Gisborne’s story and into Tobias’s so I have to say I am quite happy with that development.

How you may ask? Ah, well you will have to read Tobias to see the connection…

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