Another Amazon review

Another good review for The Poisoned Cup has appeared on Amazon:-

This book is billed as the other side of the Braveheart movie but it is a lot more accurate even though it is historical fiction and some of the main characters didn't really exist. This is the dark side of the Wallace story. The hero is an older knight who sees battle for the grim result and not for glory. He tells the tale of bloodlust driven by hate, inept commanders, and the impact on innocents. To make the story interesting, the author includes a fictional (maybe...) heroine who is very strong but also believable. If you are disillusioned by romantic accounts of Falkirk and Sterling battles, read this to get closer to the real deal. I'd like to read more by this author.

Two Reviews

I was pleased this morning to see two nice reviews of The Poisoned Cup on Amazon.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Poisoned Cup 8 Feb 2014

By Elspeth G. Perkin

Amazon Verified Purchase
Who can be truly called a Villain or a Hero? Is history biased toward certain lasting legacies of historic figures? The Poisoned Cup by Edward Lanyon presents the reader with these questions and more as the novel weaves a rich tapestry of political intrigue with a fictional seasoned knight as the reader's guide to the madness that ensued from the death of one king and the debatable obligations of another. The reader will be confronted by the raw brutality of the war between England and Scotland during the late 13th century and close with the practices enforced as punishment in the early 14th century. While some characters are based from history and others are only fictional, the main are essentially fleshed out into complex individuals that are presented as battling for diverse motives. The writing is truly impressive and readers who are familiar with the brilliant works of Maurice Druon may find similar writing style with the use of dialogue, delivery of historical events and overall pacing of the story.
In the end, The Poisoned Cup was an absolute gem of a find and I was stunned to discover that this was a debut novel. Although the portrayals of certain historical based characters seemed a little skewed and there were a few believability issues that appeared but mostly never were addressed, The Poisoned Cup was still an entertaining look at the deadly dance between England and Scotland during the late 13th and early 14th centuries and is sure to draw further interest from the reader to explore the history during that turmoil filled time and its leading opponents.

5.0 out of 5 stars A rollicking good yarn 7 Feb 2014

By Amazon Customer
I bought this one last night and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. It reads like a Bernard Cornwell novel. The key character is an aging English knight working for King Edward the First to try to bring about a lasting peace with Scotland. He is thwarted when the Scottish king Alexander is killed in an accident. One of the secondary characters is William Wallace but this is a very different Wallace to the one you see in the Braveheart film. He is far from being a hero. According to Lanyon’s notes, this is the more accurate version of him. I’m no historian so I can’t judge, but I do know that those were brutal times. With that in mind, the book’s portrayal comes across as more credible than the film image. That aside, this is a just a rollicking good historical tale with knights, battles and a beautiful young maiden. A great first novel from this new writer

 

Up and Running

My debut novel is now available on Amazon Kindle:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Poisoned-Cup-Edward-Lanyon-ebook/dp/B00I486IJM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1391065705&sr=1-1&keywords=the+poisoned+cup

About Me

I began my working life in an office in Holborn, in central London. Every day I commuted from a modest bed-sit on the edge of Wimbledon Common. On average it took me an hour and a half to get to the office, and another hour and a half to get home again in the evening. I hated that, and I hated the tedium of the job. Pouring over endless masses of figures just wasn’t for me. However, it was a job with a reasonable salary and so I stuck with it for two years. Finally, I decided that decisive action was needed if I was to actually enjoy my adult life. So I gave up the job. I now live far from London in glorious English countryside, and I write.

The Poisoned Cup is my first published novel. It stems from my love of history and historical novels. I am a big fan of Bernard Cornwell’s books, especially the Sharpe series. When I have the spare time - something I had to largely put aside in order to write The Poisoned Cup - I love to ramble in the countryside. Ideas for further stories often come to me when I am walking in remote places.

I also enjoy travelling. In recent years I have visited various far-away places including Russia, China, Canada and the Antipodes. I love to learn about other people’s cultures, but I am always happy to return to my home in rural England.

 

The Birth of a Novel

It was pure co-incidence that the Braveheart movie was broadcast on television at the same time I was reading Marc Morris’s book, A Great and Terrible King, a fascinating account of the life of King Edward the First. The two histories just didn’t go together and I became keen to dig deeper into other accounts of what actually happened in that era.  

I was aware that the film had been widely condemned in the press for its inaccuracies, but I wasn’t at first aware just how deeply those inaccuracies went. I borrowed and bought other non-fiction books, and I gathered academic papers from the internet. The journey towards discovery led me along avenues I found illuminating. I was captivated by events which I found more interesting than those portrayed in the film. Why were others not aware of the real story? Why hadn’t I learned more of the detail of that period of history when I was at school? I had, I decided, missed out by not making these discoveries earlier in my life.

In time I became keen to share my discoveries with others, but the information was already out there for others to read if they chose. It was there in books sitting idly on library shelves, and in well-written papers that few people read. How could I share my enthusiasm for this period of history in a different way? That was when I decided to write a novel set in the thirteenth century. The public at large will not usually go to the trouble of reading academic studies, but they would read a novel if I made it interesting enough. Wasn’t that how Bernard Cornwell gave us all a more detailed insight into the Peninsula War?

Thus was born The Poisoned Cup.

Edward Lanyon

Welcome to my web site. This is a new site set up to give you some background to myself and my writing. I shall be telling you more when my novel, "The Poisoned Cup, is published.