Author Q&A: V.E.H. Masters

Today we're interviewing V.E.H. Masters, the award winning author of the best-selling Seton Chronicles, a historical saga of a Scottish family torn apart by faith, love, and war during the Reformation.

Her most recent novel, Keeping Distance, is an uplifting romantic suspense novel set on a remote Scottish sheep farm.

SADYE: How did you come to see yourself as a writer, and what inspired you to seek publication?

V.E.H.: I wanted to be a writer from the age of nine, when I discovered the Anne of Green Gables books and fell in love with them. However, I’d no idea how to do it, and no confidence in my ability either.

Life took me in other directions, and I went on to run a business in executive coaching and leadership development before finally having the courage to follow my dream.

I decided to publish independently after attending a Kindle Direct Publishing event featuring some very successful independent authors.

SADYE: Which of your characters would you most and least like to trade places with?

V.E.H.: I would probably choose Bethia Seton. Through the five books of the Seton Chronicles, she travels far beyond the world in which she was raised and encounters people of different faiths, cultures and social backgrounds.

She has a difficult life, but she also has courage, resilience and an openness to people whose beliefs differ from her own.

I would least like to trade places with her brother Will, who is chained to an oar on a French galley in appalling conditions, alongside the reformer John Knox, in punishment for his part in the 1546 siege of St Andrews Castle.

SADYE: What historical figure would you most like to meet, and why?

V.E.H.: I’d most like to meet Mary, Queen of Scots — and warn her not to marry the good-looking Lord Darnley. He was a vile man, and the marriage set in motion a disastrous chain of events that led to her downfall.

SADYE: What has been the most touching or memorable piece of reader feedback you've received?

V.E.H.: I am particularly touched when readers tell me they felt they were living alongside my characters and that the books led them to find out more about Scottish history.

The Castilians was originally conceived as a standalone novel, so the readers who wanted to know what happened next encouraged me to continue with what eventually became the five-book Seton Chronicles. 

SADYE: What message or theme would you like readers to take away from your work?

V.E.H.: About just how difficult it was to live during times of religious turmoil. Your safety depended on being the right religion for the place you were in. For instance, to be a Catholic in Geneva, during the period in which I’m writing, would mean expulsion or imprisonment or worse. 

To be a Protestant in Venice was also perilous and yet Jews could live openly there and it’s where the word ghetto originates. 

Ultimately it is the support of family which saves my characters, and that’s a big theme of my books, including my contemporary novel Keeping Distance — holding together as a family is the most important thing.

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Learn more about V.E.H. Masters on her website, where her books can also be purchased; and follow her on Facebook and Instagram. 

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