VEH Masters was born and grew up on a farm just outside of St. Andrews, Scotland.
The first time she was inside St. Andrews Castle was when her history teacher, Miss Grubb, took the class on a visit, aged 12.
‘I was fascinated, especially when we crept down the siege tunnel, and peered into the bottle dungeon where Cardinal Beaton’s body is said to have been kept, pickled in salt.’
The siege of St Andrews Castle was covered briefly in school but was very much about the martyrdom of George Wishart, and, before him, Patrick Hamilton. Cardinal Beaton was described as an evil man and the men who murdered him “did the right thing”. There was only passing mention of Henry VIII’s involvement or the complex politics.
‘When I heard that they called themselves the Castilians,’ she says, ‘I remember this shiver of excitement. It seemed the perfect title for a book.’
‘I studied history at Stirling University, which was a radical place in those days,’ she says. ‘It was taught from a Marxist perspective and, again, no Scottish history.’
Her second novel, The Conversos continues the story of Bethia and Will. ‘When I began The Castilians I had no thought of a sequel but my two main characters are very young – I was curious to find out what happened for them next – and we end up in Antwerp as well as Scotland and England.’
The Apostates, the third in series is set in Venice and Geneva and in The Familists the family’s travails continue in Constantinople, Frankfurt and Rouen as the Counter Reformation gets underway.
She is currently working on the final book in the series which will be released in November 2024.
V E H Masters… vicki@vehmasters.com