AUTHOR GUEST POST : STEPHANIE COWELL, WHY I ALWAYS LOVED ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND + GIVEAWAY OF NICHOLAS COOKE (KINDLE EDITION)

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Nicholas Cooke: Actor, Soldier, Physician, Priest is a book Stephanie Cowell published in 1993 to great reviews. It is now available in the Kindle version, and Stephanie kindly accepted to talk about it here at  FLY HIGH! If you love historical fiction set in Elizabethan England, you'll be definitely interested in this book. What about getting a chance to win a free kindle copy? Leave your comment or a question for Stephanie Cowell, add your e-mail address and good luck! It's as simple as that. This giveaway is open internationally and ends on October 18th.
I first fell inlove with 16^th century England when I was very young and readeverything I could about it.  Iespecially fell in love with Shakespeare and the theater of his day.  So it was likely that the first novel I everpublished was about a brilliant boy who grows up as an actor in Shakespeare’stheater group and follows his extraordinary adventures from one difficulty toanother, from one love to another, until he eventually becomes a physician andAnglican priest. The novel is Nicholas Cooke: actor, soldier, physician, priest. It was first published towonderful reviews in 1993 and has just been re-published as a Kindle e-book.
I first traveledto England at the age of 23 quite alone with almost no money, stayed in studentlodgings and cheap hotels and ate a lot of greasy sausage rolls with tea. Ivisited Westminster Abbey and stood before Queen Elizabeth’s tomb. At the Towerof London, the guide pointed out the spot where Anne Boleyn was beheaded. InCanterbury I had an unbelievable adventure with another girl on the same bustour. Perhaps because we were young and attractive, some official person tookus to see the Archbishop’s ceremonial robes and draped one over my shoulders. Iwas very small and still recall the enormous weight of it.

The Globe Theatre

Searching forElizabeth’s England, I went of course to Stratford and was surprised that Shakespeare’sbirthplace rooms were so little. Many years later when Nicholas Cooke was about to be printed, I returned to London andwas given a tour of the new Globe Theater, then in construction. (The originalhad been burned in 1611 and then torn down in 1642.) My husband and I returned againto see a performance there and when we walked into this theater I am imaginedfor so long, it was overwhelming.

In Nicholas Cooke, the 19-year-old Nicholasruns away from the actors to enlist as a soldier in the Irish Wars and soonrealizes what a bad choice he had made. Only with the help of his mentorShakespeare does he managed to be taken on by the actors again in the original Globewhich Nicholas himself helped to build. Every time I travelto London I walk to the old City; it is the original medieval London, and inthe time of my novel it was still a walled city with seven gates. Parts of thewalls remain even now with a few churches and buildings which escaped the GreatFire of 1666. In St Andrew Undershaftin Aldgate Ward is the burial place and memorial status of the greatElizabethan London historian, John Stow; there is a quill pen in his hand andeach year it is replaced by the Mayor of London. The Guildhall you will find isthe same one built in 1441.
Nicholas Cookewas a creation of my imagination, based on several brilliant 16^th-17^thcentury men.His fascinating story is a trilogy spanning 1593-1666. The secondbook The Physician of London won anAmerican Book Award and I am currently writing the third book called In the Chambers of the King.  What was once streets filled withhalf-timbered houses of course is now the financial district of London. When Igo there I always walk to Wood Street where Nicholas lived. I don’t see what isthere now; I see what was there in 1593. Any moment I expect all the tallbuildings to turn back to the way they were four hundred and twenty-one yearsago, build out over the street and almost touching, that any moment mycharacters will be hurrying down the street to meet me.
The imaginationof the novelist, I suppose…and the magic of Elizabethan England.
Stephanie Cowell
About the author: Historical novelist StephanieCowell is the author of Nicholas Cooke, The Physician of London, The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare, Marrying Mozart and Claude & Camille: a novel ofMonet. She is a recipient of an American Book Award. Her work has beentranslated into nine languages. Her website is http://www.stephaniecowell.com
About the book 

NICHOLAS COOKE: ACTOR, SOLIDER, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST, the story of a brilliant but hot-tempered boy who grows up as an apprentice in Shakespeare’s theater troupe 1593 and to whom Shakespeare is a life-long mentor, was first published eighteen years ago by W.W. Norton. It was called “immensely moving,” by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, “compelling reading” by the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, “brilliant, bawdy, and utterly delightful,” by MADELEINE L’ENGLE, and “a detailed portrait of Shakespearean England,” by KIRKUS which gave it a starred review as did PUBLISHER’s WEEKLY. THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote, “Cowell has poured heart and a great deal of intelligence into her first novel about an impetuous, inquisitive young man in an impetuous, inquisitive age,” and LIBRARY JOURNAL called it “An exquisitely drawn portrait of a robust age and a complex man at war with himself.”
The talented but conflicted Nicholas Cooke wanted to be an Anglican priest since he was a child, yet his fiery temperament consigned him to far different apprenticeships. His adventures lead him to become an actor, a soldier, and, as he grew older, a physician. During his lifetime Nicholas encounters Shakespeare, plague, the secret life of the Queen, many loves, marriage and children, the joy of the theatre, and the troubles of war. He serves his master, John Heminges, who teaches him the craft of acting; but it is the master's wife who teaches Nick about love. Yet he never can forget his early call to be a priest until in the depths of losses he cannot face, an unexpected door opens to him at last. 
From the dramatic opening lines to the inspiring conclusion of this first book of this trilogy, Nicholas Cooke grows, stumbles, presses on, and eventually becomes a man whom others respect and recognize as a brilliant mind and a sensitive, loving soul. But there is much more to Nick's story, and, as Nicholas himself might have understood, an end is but a beginning.
NICHOLAS COOKE was a choice of the History Book Club. It is the first part of a trilogy which will take Nicholas from 1593 to 1666, from his boyhood through the fall of the monarchy and its eventual restoration. The next novel, THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON (which will be available as an e-book late 2012) won an American Book Award. The last book of the trilogy will be published towards the end of 2013.
Stephanie Cowell is also the author of CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF MONET (Crown), MARRYING MOZART (Viking Penguin) and THE PLAYERS: A NOVEL OF THE YOUNG SHAKESPEARE (W.W. Norton).
TO ORDER NICHOLAS COOKE 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0094KFHJQ/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8