Jess Mahler

Bound by His Oath started with tropes. Specifically, the trope referenced in the blurb -- the medieval lady forced into marriage against her will who falls in to with her new lord in spite of his controlling and overbearing nature and the loss whatever hopes she'd had for her life before her marriage.

I wondered if there was ever a time or place historically where the reverse could have happened. I knew there were times and cultures where ruling ladies were possible, could there be a story about a man forced to become consort to a ruling lady and accept a life a subordinate to his wife? I knew that pre-Norman Conquest England was one place where women could occasionally inherit land, property and rank if their father had no sons. And I knew that in Norman England, rights for unmarried noble women were basically non-existent. So immediately post-Conquest Norman England was one possible time and place where high ranking women who expected to have some rights and high ranking men who expected to have all the rights might end up pushed into marriage. If the woman was smart enough, and the man was both honorable and in a bad enough position...

Well, my research skills weren't up to my standards. I simply didn't have the spoons or knowledge to do the in depth knowledge to pull of a historical novel. (I've always known this, but had to try anyway.) Once I accepted that, no, historical fiction authors really are people to be in awe of and I never want to do that again, I changed directions. Bound became the kind of 'lost colony scifi' folks have been using for years to tell stories in historical-sounding settings that have nothing to do with real history. Because why not?

When the story comes together, and everything is flowing, the writing feels like flying, and a scene just hits me in the middle of the gut, and I know in that moment speaks to something deeper than just the story.