James Heneage | “I think this is such a fantastical period, with fantastical characters... it borders on ‘Game of Thrones’ territory.”

When the news came to The Bookseller last year that James Heneage had inked a three-book deal with Quercus my first thought, perhaps like many in the trade, was: oh, the former boss of Ottakar’s. I’m sure it was hard for him to get a book deal.

I tell Heneage this when we meet at the bar at the top of Waterstones Piccadilly—appropriately enough, as it was to HMV, then owners of Waterstones, that he sold Ottakar’s in 2006 for £62.8m—and he laughs. “Well, I can understand people thinking like that,” he says. “But it wasn’t really straightforward at all.”

Indeed, when he told a publisher friend early on in the writing about the plot—a series of books with three competing families centring around the fall of Constantinople in the 14th and 15th century—the feedback was not effusive. “He sort of groaned and said: ‘James couldn’t you just write something about the Tudors?’”

Heron Books

In the end, the reason Susan Watt at Quercus imprint Heron Books signed Heneage was not for his book trade pedigree, but because it is a cracking read. The Walls of Byzantium is a tale of two cities—Constantinople and Mistra—the last bastions of the Byzantium Empire (the former Eastern part of the Roman Empire) as it teeters on destruction, pressed by Turks and the genocidal Tamerlane to the East, and competing city-states, such as Venice and Genoa, to the West.

Into this broad historical canvas Heneage creates a compelling narrative of intrigue, love and war. Sixteen-year-old Luke is the warrior in waiting, being groomed for the emperor’s elite squad of soldiers, but has to flee when he is betrayed. Anna, the brave and bold daughter of a prominent nobleman is married to the grotesque prince Damian, but runs away with Luke. Meanwhile, Damian’s cunning sister Zoe is walking a political and personal tightrope, pretending to help Luke and Anna while double-dealing with their worst enemies.

Road less travelled

The period of history Heneage focuses on, at least in English-language historical fiction, is certainly not a well-worn path. “It is more of a challenge to persuade an English audience to be interested in a far away land,” Heneage acknowledges. “But I think readers will respond, because this is such a rich seam of history. You had a clash of religions, a clash of empires. It was such a pivotal point in history. You had this enormous new threat to Christianity. At stake was the Italian Renaissance, which was just budding at the time. You could make the case that if the Italian Renaissance didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have had the Enlightment, the Industrial Revolution and, as a result, all the things we have today.”

It also helps, Heneage says, that some of the real-life historical characters are “stranger than fiction”. Take Tamerlane, the former sheep-rustler turned warlord, who laid waste to entire cities; killed around 5% of the world’s population when conquering much of Central Asia; and built towers of skulls from his dead enemies. Or Giovanni Giustiniani, a Genoese nobleman who, off his own back and entirely self-financed, took a relatively small group of knights to Constantinople and held the city for months against enormous odds.

“It was almost a sort of myth-making time,” Heneage says. “I think this is such a fantastical period, with fantastical characters . . . it borders on ‘Game of Thrones’ territory.”

Though his deal with Quercus is for three books, Heneage has mapped out seven in the series. The plan is for a book a year and his model, somewhat surprisingly at first glance, is Dorothy Dunnett’s Niccol√≤ series. Yet though Heneage’s book has no small amount of swordplay and battles that a red-blooded Conn Iggulden fan might appreciate, it is strongest in its depiction of its two female leads. He says: “Setting out, I did think that one of my keys would be making a series that would appeal to women.”

Since selling off Ottakar’s over seven years ago, and before embarking on his writing career, Heneage had hardly been spending his time on the golf course. He chaired the Cheltenham Literary Festival, was a Man Booker Prize judge and set up the Prince’s Rainforest Project for the Prince of Wales (and in his spare time fronts a rock band called The Jimmy Heneage Experience). He also co-created, and continues to run, the Chalke Valley History Festival with historian/novelist James Holland. Now in its third year, the CVHF has grown tenfold since its inception—30,000 people are expected at the 2013 event this June. In addition to the literary side—this year’s line-up includes Alison Weir, Antonia Fraser and Sebastian Faulks—there is a burgeoning living history arm, a Second World War air show and kids activities like “Sword School” and “Have-A-Go Archery”.
Later this year, CVHF will be launching History Hub, a sort of TED Talks model of online history-themed lectures. “It’s a nail-biting time,” Heneage says. “We’ve had a huge investment, a huge upgrade.”

Heneage’s book comes out in a far different time than when he left bookselling, but he remains optimistic. “There is a smaller physical shop window, and gone are the days of vast initial orders from bookshops. But I think the environment of bookselling has changed for the better. Although there are fewer outlets, if they are surviving it’s because they are good. I’ve had enormous fun going to indies in particular. Waterstones has a new life, new vigour, and still has fabulous staff. The overall market is, in many ways, more interesting.”