Jude Knight is one of my fellow authors in the Bluestocking Belles’ 2018 Holiday Boxed Set, Follow Your Star Home!
She’s here today with an interview of Mahzad, heroine of her novella from the set entitled Paradise Regained. Paradise Regained is a prequel to Jude’s planned series, Children of the Mountain King.
Contents
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Once, I would have said my marriage. When James asked me to be his wife, I was in heaven, for I had long been in love with him. I never expected to marry for love… the storytellers and the poets celebrate the love between a man and a woman, but marriages are practical affairs, especially for the daughters of the powerful.
He is still my husband, my partner in this kingdom and all its enterprises, and the father of my children. I still love him with every particle of my being. Is that enough? It has to be. In my heart, I yearn for my love to be returned, but my mind tells me I have more than most: eight beautiful children and a husband who treats me with respect and still desires my body. To be desired after all these years: is that not an achievement?
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Being with my husband and my children in the enclosed garden that James gave me for a wedding present. No servants. No work demanding our attention. Just time together, enjoying one another’s company.
What is your current state of mind?
Worried. Why would I not be? My husband, my father, incipient rebellion, soldiers at our gates… I have much to worry about.
James should have been home weeks ago. Whatever can be keeping him? His message says he is well, but is it true? He has never stayed away this long before.
As for the rest, my military commander does not wish to take orders from a woman, and my father arrived with soldiers on his heels, demanding his head as their price for going away. I have not seen my father since he sold me into marriage in China, a marriage I fled with James, and I owe him nothing. But he is still my father.
What is your favorite occupation?
I will not speak of my favourite occupation. It is not seemly. Let me just say that in my husband’s arms I can pretend, at least for a while, that I am loved as I do love.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Ah. This question I have answered already. From the moment I first saw him, James. For the past fifteen years, James. Till my dying breath, James.
What is your favorite journey?
Any journey I take with James.
What is your greatest fear?
I fear that James will leave me to return to the family and the love that he left in England.
Which living person do you most despise?
My father, who told me for the first fifteen years of my life that I was his treasure, and who took the first moment to trade me for political gain.
Where would you like to live?
Pari-Daiza Vadi; Paradise Valley, in English. This is the mountain kingdom James and I rescued from a brigand, renamed, and now rule. This is my home, and I would not wish to be anywhere else.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
Honour. James is an honourable man, and I know I can always count on him to keep his promises and to do his duty. In some ways, it drives me demented, for I wish to be his love, not his duty. But still, I love him for his sense of honour.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Kindness. I grew up in the zenana, the women’s quarters of my father’s palace. As the favoured daughter of the khan and the only granddaughter of his mother, who ruled the zenana, I came to know all the ways that women can be cruel to one another without being detected and punished. Kindness is a very special quality.
How would you like to die?
Of old age in my bed surrounded by my family, but I am in the hands of God.
What is your motto?
What cannot be cured must be endured.
Paradise Regained
In discovering the mysteries of the East, James has built a new life. Will unveiling the secrets in his wife’s heart destroy it?
And it’s out soon!
Thank you for being with us here today! I can’t wait till it’s out, and it will be soon, like… on the fourth!
I hope you can all join us at our FB launch here!
Plenty of prizes to be won and even more fun to be had!
Come on by!
xx
Lizzi
About Jude Knight
I have always loved telling stories, mostly for the benefit of children in need of entertainment, or to amuse myself while waiting (six children mean a lot of waiting), or to continue to live in a book world after I had closed the covers.
In 2014, the first of my strong determined historical heroines, heroes who appreciate them, and villains you’ll love to loathe made their way into the covers of Candle’s Christmas Chair.
A dozen books later, the wind fills my sails and many more plots jostle for daylight. My great desire is to sell enough of my books to leave the day job and write full-time. If you like what I do, I’d love you to spread the word.
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