Tag Archives: Ellen Alpsten

From Fact to Fiction: The Last Princess by Ellen Alpsten

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No other genre offers the unique ‘triple E’ rating as much as Historical Fiction: education, entertainment and escapism. Best are those books that revive a hitherto hidden heroine: a woman with agency, who isn’t formulaic. Finding them isn’t easy, and the leap from fact to fiction a labour of love. Let me take you by the hand and lead you back in time for a millennium. 

My new novel ‘The Last Princess’ is about Gytha Godwinson, the daughter of England’s true House of Dragons and of its last Anglo-Saxon King, Harold II. Godwinson – isn’t that in 1066, that hour zero of the British Isles? Yes, it is. But if this vast timespan is an enormous challenge, it also gives you great liberty. 

Yet rule number one of writing historical fiction is stringent research before you even think of picking up the pen. I read for almost a year to immerse myself in this long bygone world. Research is the rigid, non-negotiable frame in which the story and the plot may teem and swarm as the most colourful of images – an image I am determined to paint in ‘The Last Princess’. A reader gives me their most valuable – and that is not their money, but their time. 

But the Anglo-Saxons treaded famously lightly on the surface of this earth, building in mud, wattle, and daub and living in harmony with nature and its seasons: call it medieval mindfulness. If their ‘settlements’ are long gone, Bosham’s chapel is largely unchanged since Anglo-Saxon days. The distinct two storey architecture of Gytha’s family home, Bosham Manor, is depicted on the Bayeux tapestry. It is here that Gytha’s story starts, during a raucous Modranecht, and the candle-lit glory of a great Hall. But already, the seed of discord is sewn, and it turns the ground beneath her feet into quicksand. The events of that evening will swallow her life and her world, forcing her forward into her fabulous fate. This fills the firm framework of research such as an image popping with colour, swarming and surprising! Gytha’s  times – the High Middle Ages– were an era of intense change, especially for women. 

By autumn 1066, Christianity had reached most corners of the European world. Historically, there is much more evidence of women and how they interacted with the world around them, both religious and secular. Yet it also triggered a type of repression in which women’s bodies are seen as inherently polluting. At the same time, Christianity enables female spiritual growth and the development of canon law also impacted Christian women’s status. If the Fourth Lateran Council solidified the need for consent within marriage, Thomas Aquinas dictated that women owed their husbands ‘a conjugal debt.’

It is in this field of tension that Gytha grows up: ancient rites clash with strict Christian morals. This gives Gytha the courage to question the powers in place and makes her story irresistible: prepare yourself for a wild ride. ‘The Last Princess’ is stringent historical fiction that teems with trolls, malevolent stars, green-faced fairy folk, giants, nasty Norse sorceresses, handsome hunks, and an evil spell that keeps our beautiful, flame-haired Princess captive – and it’s all true. After she witnesses the Battle of Hastings through a crazy twist of super-natural story-telling – we are a 1000 years ago, aren’t we? – Gytha’s life has different plans for her; or does she have different plans for her life? She dares the unthinkable and as she faces fight or flight, she picks both: Gytha lives trial, terror and finally triumph. Her story bridges myth and modernity: She speaks in a strong, clear and modern voice about the demise of a cursed kingdom and the emergence of a new empire. 

But which empire is it that the last Anglo-Saxon Princess founded? 

Let me surprise you: I am writing book two of the series ‘The Sunrise Queen’ as we speak.  

Ellen Alpsten was born and raised in the Kenyan highlands and holds a MSc from the IEP de Paris. She worked as a News-Anchor for Bloomberg TV before writing fulltime. Her debut novel ‘Tsarina’ and its sequel ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’ (both Bloomsbury Publishing) is widely translated and were shortlisted for numerous awards.

Preorder ‘The Last Princess’ here: 

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My Writing Process Ellen Alpsten

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Ellen Alpsten author photo 4 (c) Andreas StirnbergWriting ‘Her-story’ –

Tell us about what you have written?
When hearing about the heroines of my novels ‘Tsarina’ and ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’, people’s eyes pop: ‘How did you find them?’ No wonder – both belong to the family of which its own Nikita Romanov said in 1669: ‘Our men are meek as maidens, and our women wild as wolverines.’ Both books are the first ever published novels about either lady. ‘Tsarina’ Catherine I. rose from illiterate serf to first reigning Empress of Russia, while the country morphed from backward nation to modern superpower. ‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’, Elizabeth, the only surviving of Peter the Great’s fifteen children, lived the opposite of her mother: she fell from unimaginable riches to rags, before triumphantly rising from rags to Romanov.

What you are promoting now?
‘The Tsarina’s Daughter’ – the second book in a planned quartet – is published in July 2021. It was a privilege to write. Elizabeth emerges from the strict historical setting of the Petrine era – the construction of St. Petersburg, old semi-Asian Muscovy fighting the new half-European Russia – as a very modern woman. At her parents’ death, friends turned foe. Barely out of her teens, she was impoverished and isolated; even loving her was a crime that warranted capital punishment. Yet even when her path proved to be stony, Elizabeth would not surrender. She decides to take what is hers – Russia’s throne – even if it comes at a terrible price.

Tell us a bit about your process of writing.
As a student, I worked as an assistant for the Parisian bestselling author Benoite Groult. Every evening I did my own writing in my little studio, 12 sqm in the 7th arrondissement: a million words before I ever got published. Nowadays, there is no writer’s block. The Muse has to present herself at 9.30 and she better bring coffee. Working on a PC is a blessing – I am in awe when seeing Dostoevsky’s handwritten manuscripts. To finish a novel is a challenge, yet the first draft is a drop in the ocean. Editing is schizophrenic, knowing the manuscript by heart yet reading it afresh countless times. Doing our best is a duty. Readers offer us their most valuable – their time, an ever-diminishing resource.

How do you structure a book?
Mme Groult’s advice for starting and structuring a novel was invaluable: ‘The first stanza is the novel en miniature.’ Which moment sums up the story’s conflict? A life’s ups and downs so not reel the reader in. Choose characters with care – who are they, why are they there, and how do they drive the story forward?

What do you find hard about writing?
Being a writer can be a Janus-faced existence. Lonely and introspective, at publication time the cruellest of lights may be shed on your innermost thoughts and feelings. The path to success is littered with rejection – in a former life, I was either a duck or a teflon-coated pan. Getting published traditionally is artistically the hardest challenge. A painting is judged in a second, a song listened to in three minutes. But convincing someone to read your 650-page tome?

What do you love about writing?

By writing, I am living my dream: making other people dream. The freedom we live, and the alternate worlds we create, are worth any moment of self-doubt. If you doubt, you work harder. Enjoy the trip, as the goals are forever shifting – and as utterly unattainable as the most elusive of lovers.

The paperback of Tsarina is published on the 24th June and the hardback of The Tsarina’s Daughter is out on 8th July,