And we took a walk on New Year's Day to sort of blow away the cobwebs of the night before and we were on Omaha Beach, and I don't know if you've been to Omaha Beach, I'm sure a lot of the listeners have been, it's a very moving place and you can't help but think of D-Day and the stories of World War II. I was in Normandy, France, and I'd taken a bunch of friends to Normandy to stay in a big, sort of tumble-down chateau near the town of Saint-Lô and not far from the Normandy beaches, famous from D-Day in World War II. But I kind of didn't really know where to take it, and I was busy doing nonfiction books anyway, so I shelved it for a little while until New Year's Day 2019. And it came very easily, surprisingly easily, because I hadn't really done many projects similar to that before. I had no more than that to go on, but I opened my laptop. I could see these group of three mercenary soldier types dragging a boat at the beach. And I just had an idea as I was kind of dozing, dreaming on an airplane. It was around the time I was writing my book about the Templars. I'd been working on a big drama project about the Templars, actually. I also had an idea, which came to me in parts.
And I decided if I didn't do it at this point, 10 books and 40 years old, it was going to kind of be a long wait before that superstitious round number thing came round again. And those two round numbers really just got into my head. But I got over that, I suppose, because I was turning 40 and because I'd written 10 big nonfiction books. And I'd said no because I sort of didn't have a great idea that I wanted to pursue, but also because I was just very trepidatious about the whole process of moving from nonfiction into fiction, and frankly uncertain whether I'd be able to do it very well. When I agreed to do Essex Dogs, I had been asked in the past to do historical fiction for the reasons you've surmised. So why now? Why was now the right time for you to wade into historical fiction, and why this story in particular?ĭJ: Well, I think in terms of timing, it's really peculiar to my own psychology.
You make these historical explorations engaging and exciting and, frankly, feel like fiction. KO: You are so loved for your nonfiction, books like The Templars and The War of the Roses. Dan's debut historical fiction, Essex Dogs, performed by Ben Miles, follows an eclectic group of soldiers in the early days of the Hundred Years' War. I'm Audible Editor Katie O'Connor, and today I'm excited to be speaking with journalist, historian, and now novelist Dan Jones. Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.
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