After the fairytale is a fictional novel based on real characters and events in history. The book creates a merged history based on very intriguing people from different times. I essentially wrote this book around three characters in history who have always fascinated me: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Alessandro de Medici and Josephine Bonaparte. All three lived in different times, so I had to build a fabricated story around them. The merged timeline takes place between the 12th and 17th centuries. I tried to imagine how these individuals in these stories would react to each other if they lived in the same time period.
The first real character to grace this book was Eleanor of Aquitaine, who became my favorite historical character the day I read Leslie Carroll’s Notorious Royal Marriages. Adding Eleanor, naturally pulled in King Henry, John, Richard and Saladin, all intriguing real life characters with rich histories. I came across Alessandro de Medici after seeing his portrait painted by Giorgio Vasari. The best part about using Alessandro de Medici was that much is known about him, but very little has been written about him. For example, Shakespeare based Othello on his life and debate exists as to whether Machiavelli’s book The Prince was dedicated to Lorenzo de Medici or Alessandro de Medici. Adding Alessandro de Medici brought the Renaissance into the book, along with the Medici clan. The last character added to the trinity was Josephine Bonaparte. She was such an explosive character in history that I couldn’t resist adding her. Her addition also allowed me to include Napoleon and General Alexandre Dumas.