Book One of the Fitzjohn Duology
Historical Fiction with Speculative and Romantic Elements
Date Published: 09-01-2026
Publisher: Literary Wanderlust
England, 1381 AD: Blanche Fitzjohn is an outcast in her small coastal
village. Not only is she the illegitimate daughter of John of Gaunt, the man
responsible for her neighbors’ over-taxation, but she possesses strange
abilities: hearing sound from miles away and smelling people’s emotions.
She takes solace in her studies with the local wisewoman and in her friendship
with Geoff, a groom at the local manor. Until the day Henry of Lancaster,
Blanche’s half-brother, brings her news of an arranged marriage to Sir
Thomas Prescott, Constable of the Tower of London. Although she smells cruelty
on him, Blanche agrees to marry Thomas in the hopes that her influence may
help better the lives of Geoff and all England’s villeins.
But soon, the peasants’ discontent turns to revolt. Though her heart is
of the people, Blanche’s nobility makes her an enemy to the rebels. To
save herself and Henry from the executioner’s ax, Blanche must use every
power at her disposal, even those she once considered a curse.
Chapter Six Excerpt
Something shifts, like summer’s green leaves transforming to autumnal
gold. Speaking with Geoff about my marriage hurts like I’d never
expected, a deep ache. The moon thrums, and an owl, perched in a nearby tree,
shifts as she searches for prey. My temples throb.
“It seemed…” he begins again. “It seemed he
didn’t want to marry you, after you…” I glare and cross my
arms before lifting my face. He continues: “I thought perhaps you could
get out of it because…”
“Because of what?”
“Because, ye’re…”
“What, Geoff, what am I?”
His mouth opens like a fish above water, and he doesn’t bother to shut
it. In the tree, the owl flaps her wings and leaps into the air.
“Ye’re…” The tips of Geoff’s fingers flutter.
“Well, I don’t know what you are, Dandy. Ye’re
just…yerself. And I thought—”
“You thought he wouldn’t want me?”
His face falls. “He’s not like you, Dandy. That’s all.
He’s not a good man. I heard him talking, when it was just the
men…”
He drops his eyes and his cheekbones redden.
Neither of us seems to know what to say next. After a full minute of silence,
he lurches forward and grasps my shoulders, crushing me to his chest.
“Blanche, just consider.”
I gasp and have to steady myself. But within seconds, tears come to my eyes,
along with a calming release of tension. I grip his forearms, inhale his
familiar scent. He’s always smelled of horses, with a hint of bread
dough and sugar from the manor kitchens he’s constantly raiding.
There’s something different tonight. I sniff. It’s crisp, yet
soft. Evergreens in winter, covered with fresh snow.
He buries his nose in my hair. “You could refuse,” he says, voice
a gentle rumble against my face, “and stay with yer mother. She’d
be angry, yes, but she wouldn’t throw you out. They can’t drag you
to the church. For a marriage to be real, you must consent.”
Consent. The word ripples through me. It makes me see that I want more, from
Maman, from my father, but most of all from Geoff. I need something I
can’t identify, something I can’t express.
“If I marry Thomas…” My muffled voice breaks. “It
will make the duke happy. He’ll…” I tense, regretting my
words.
“He’ll what?”
I can’t answer, can’t tell him that by marrying Sir Thomas, I hope
to earn my father’s love. To replace…something.
The moon moves behind a cloud and the trees shift, branches releasing a shower
of rain. Geoff drops one hand to the small of my back and lifts the other to
my cheek. His palms are warm, and I slide my own to clench his upper arms.
When my fingertips brush hardened muscles, I almost snatch my hands back.
Before tonight, I still thought of Geoff as a child, the lanky villein who
could ride any horse, no matter how fierce. Now…my mouth goes dry, but
I can’t resist running my hands up the length of his arms, letting them
rest on his shoulders. The skin beneath his tunic is damp with sweat.
Corded muscles tense and stretch beneath my fingers, sending little jolts
through me. He stoops, chin brushing my temple.
I touch the notch of his throat with my fingertips. He freezes. Tiny curls of
dark hair peek above his collar, tickling my fingers. He lets his face linger
on mine, and I feel him inhale.
A pleasant warmth spreads through my belly, then down. Something’s
happening, something I don’t understand. I should run, should leave. But
I don’t. Another breeze drifts through the tree branches, and he pulls
me closer, pressing me to him.
I feel him, all of him, from feet to chin, in a way I never have. A tingling,
heavy warmth settles on me, and I feel Geoff’s own need pressing against
my belly.
It should make me uncomfortable, but I find myself pressing back, wanting
more. Wanting it all.
I’m not well-versed in what happens between a woman and a
man—that’s one area of my education Maman neglected—but
I’m not completely ignorant. I know Geoff and I stand on a cliff, gazing
into a deep ravine. One more step, and we’ll both be lost.
I’m still touching his throat, suspended in our odd dance beneath the
shuddering tree branches, when he bends further. I close my eyes and focus on
the sensation of his stubbly chin against my face. He exhales, and a shiver
runs down my spine.
“Dandy…” he murmurs.
The owl swoops to snatch a mouse from the forest floor in sharp talons. Her
screech is like a battle horn, ricocheting with painful deliberation in my
skull, joined by the mouse’s squeal. My eyelids snap open and I step out
of his embrace.
About the Author
J.E. Rizzo is a life-long history fanatic and writer of historical fiction,
and her work can be found in Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The
Tudor Times, Tudor Life Magazine, Scary Mommy, and Ultrarunning Magazine.
Rizzo won Manuscript Academy’s Agent Choice Award in 2024, and her
article Past and Precedence: Abortion Law in the Middle Ages and Its Use to
Overturn Roe v. Wade won History Inquiry’s Medieval History Writing
Challenge.
By day, Rizzo works in Human Resources—a field offering more than ample
opportunity to observe the follies and fancies of humankind. Before her career
in HR, Rizzo worked as an opera singer, a professional baker, and a dog
walker. These days, when not writing she can be found running ultramarathons
through the forests and mountains of New England, knitting, reading, sewing,
baking, or performing any number of (what some might call) old-lady hobbies.
She also keeps busing caring for her two children and forty-seven houseplants,
making her husband carry heavy things and cook her gourmet meals, and
rehabilitating her rescue dog and semi-feral ginger cat.
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