Barbara is a disabled-in-the-line-of-duty retired police officer. She earned an MA in English and continued a course of study for a Doctorate in Literature and Rhetoric. She happily considered herself an exceedingly eccentric English professor, until success in Indie publishing lured her into writing, full-time, featuring her fictional knighthood, the Brethren of the Coast.
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barbaradevlin.com Uncaged welcomes Barbara Devlin Welcome to Uncaged! The Accidental Duke will release on April 14th, and is the first book in a series. Can you tell readers more about this book and series? How many books are initially planned for the series? My new series features disabled heroes from the battle of Waterloo, and the topic is especially close to my heart, given I am disabled. Actually, it’s safe to say this book isn’t just close to my heart. In some ways it is my heart. The Accidental Duke positions disability at the center of the conflict. The story also details PTSD, which was known as nostalgia or irritable heart, at the time. And this is a story about a hero with a disability written by an author with a disability. It’s authentic and deeply personal. But I also wanted to attack some of the stigma associated with disability. While anyone can research and write about disability, I think only someone who lives with disability can truly convey the impact of a life-altering injury. I’ve had so many people tell me to move on or get over what happened to me. Therein lies the greatest misunderstanding. I’ll never get over the line-of-duty accident that ended my law enforcement career, my marathon running, and put me in rehab for three years. I may be alive, and I may be finding success in other ventures, but what I have today
will never be normal for me. Normal was what I had prior to the accident. And the accident didn’t happen that one time, the morning of December 23, 1998. I relive the trauma every day, over and over again, as manifested in all the things I can no longer do for myself. No matter how good things are now, there’s always the nagging temptation to look back to the past, to remember what I was once. The memory of my former self, hale and whole, will haunt me until I die. That’s what I hope the reader sees in my book. As for the series, the first contract with Dragonblade is for three books, but there are another three in the works. You’ve written a lot of historical romances. How do you find inspiration for a new story and characters that you haven’t already written? My characters and stories are inspired by my research. There’s always some kernel of truth at the center of my plots. Whether it’s Napoleon’s code, from My Lady, the Spy, or Dr. Larrey’s medical papers on PTSD, I build my worlds around facts. To me, that gives the books some credibility as well as believability. What are you working on next that you can tell us about? As of this moment, I am working on the second book in my Mad Matchmakers of Waterloo series, The Accidental Groom. I’m also plotting a trilogy of books based on a descendent of royal lineage that connects Spanish royalty to the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II. What are you looking forward to doing when the pandemic is over that you haven’t been able to do? I am anxious to restart the reader conferences. I miss connecting not only with my author friends but also with my readers. While conferences are great for networking, it is the interaction with readers that most draws my interest. My readers know some of the most intimate details of my life. I love the ambiguity and verbal texture of fiction that allows Issue 57 | April 2021 | 81
