ALEXANDRA GRANT AUTHOR
A BIT ABOUT ME
I qualified as an optician and ran my own practice for many years before retiring early in order to concentrate on my two great loves – writing and history. I have also taken an Open University degree in Arts, Literature and History subjects.
I have travelled widely in Greece, both by car and in sailing boats, and have spent years researching my book in order to present people and events as truthfully as possible, while still making it an interesting story to read. I have always loved Greece and was first inspired to write this book by a tradition in our family that a descendant of Thomas Palaeologos, the youngest brother of Constantine XI, last Emperor of Byzantium, had come to Cornwall in the early 17th century and his descendants had married into our family. It is only a tenuous connection but when I began researching the history of the Palaeologos Emperors, it seemed that Thomas’ life was a story that would be interesting to tell. I have used primary source material as much as possible but there are not that many contemporaneous accounts of the period and there have been many gaps in the record: this is where the historical novelist can make use of imaginative guesswork to move the story along. The main facts and most of the characters are from recorded history, but I have added a few extra characters where there seemed to be a need.
THE MULBERRY TREE
March 15, 2017
This is the 1st book of my trilogy about the family of Constantine Palaeologos, the last Christian Emperor in Constantinople, who died defending his city against the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
"History is always written wrong, and so needs to be rewritten."
George Santayana
RECENT BOOKS
The Mulberry Tree - 2017
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Constantine - 2019
This is a historical novel set in Greece in the 15th Century during the turbulent last years of the Eastern Roman Empire, usually known as Byzantine.
Thomas, the youngest son of the Emperor Manuel Palaeologos, is sent away from Constantinople as a young boy to live at the court of his brother Theodore in the Peloponnese, then known as the Morea. Here he grows to manhood and marries, but his life is beset by troubles, with the local barons, with his wife's hostile family and among his own quarrelsome brothers.
And from the East the armies of the Ottoman Sultan are drawing ever nearer.
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CONSTANTINE
September 11 2019
A historical novel set in Greece in the 15th Century, the 2nd book of a trilogy charting the turbulent last years of the Byzantine Empire.
The narrator is Thomas, the youngest brother of the Emperor John VIII Palaeologos, who has been made a Despot in the Peloponnese, then known as the Morea, along with his older brothers Theodore and Constantine. There they try to keep the peace between the local barons and sometimes even among themselves.
In Constantinople the Emperor John is also beset by problems, not least of which is the rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II.
Constantine is the most capable of all the brothers and is resolved to drive the Sultan’s army back eastwards to Anatolia. But will his determination be enough?
THE MULBERRY TREE
March 15 2017
The first book of a trilogy of historical novels set in Greece in the 15th Century, during the turbulent last years of the Byzantine Empire.
Thomas, the youngest son of the Emperor Manuel Palaeologos, is sent away from Constantinople as a young boy to live at the court of his brother Theodore in the Peloponnese. Here he grows to manhood and marries, but his life is beset by troubles, with the local barons, with his wife's hostile family and among his own quarrelsome brothers.
And from the East the armies of the Ottoman Sultan are drawing ever nearer.