March's Must-Reads: Mystery, Romance, and Thrills Await!
Margaret Frazer
To begin with, ‘Margaret Frazer’ was two people, both
interested in writing and in medieval England, one of them
with modern murder mysteries already published, the other
with file drawers, shelves, and notebooks full of research
on England in the 1400s. They met in a historical
recreationist group called the Society for Creative
Anachronism and joined forces to write The Novice’s Tale,
the first in a history mystery series centered on a
Benedictine nun, Dame Frevisse, of a small priory in
Oxfordshire.
During their collaboration, the authors worked together
by first laying out the general idea of a story. Then
the ‘Frazer’ half of the team developed the plot and
characters in detail and wrote the first draft.
The ‘Margaret’ half then re-worked that into a second
draft, the ‘Frazer’ half re-worked that, and then they did
the final draft together. The collaboration worked well
through six books and two award nominations––an Edgar for
The Servant’s Tale and a Minnesota Book Award for The
Bishop’s Tale––before the ‘Margaret’ half grew tired of the
series and amicably returned to the 20th century, leaving
the ‘Frazer’ half to continue the series, with an Edgar
nomination for The Prioress’ Tale.
Margaret Frazer writes stories set in medieval England
because she greatly enjoy looking at the world from other
perspectives than the 20th century. Her brief college
career was as an archaeology major with writing intended as
a hobby, but with one thing and another, her interest came
down to medieval England with writing as her primary
activity, only rivaled by my love of research. Frazer
learned about medieval English politics, religion,
philosophy, sociology, economics––all the multi-layered
elements that go into making the lives of people in any
time period. So when the chance came to write a mystery
series set in medieval England, she took it.
In everyday life, Margaret is Gail Frazer, living in the
countryside north of Elk River, Minnesota, with four cats
and not enough bookshelves. Over the years she’s had
various jobs, including librarian, secretary, reseacher for
a television station, gift shop manager, and assistant
matron at an English girls’ school. Married once upon a
time but not anymore, she has two well-grown sons. She
writes more often than not, and when once she moaned “I
have to get a life,” her family informed her, “You have
one. It’s in the 1400s.” That seems to sum up things rather
nicely.
Living a devout life in Medieval England, Sister
Frevisse is sinfully good at discerning the mysteries of
the soul…and solving the crimes of the human heart.