Win a copy of Krakow Waltz

Do you like historical romances with unusual settings? If so, then my new book, Krakow Waltz, might be one for you. It's out this month in paperback and as an ebook and is set mostly in what we now call Southern Poland.

Poland has had a chequered history and for most of the 19th century didn't exist as a country. Following the Napoleonic Wars, the Treaty of Vienna (1815) carved it up between the neighbouring powers: Russia, Prussia and Austria. However, the city of Krakow was designated as a self-governing "free city" and stayed that way until it was annexed by Austria in 1846.

Part of my family comes from Krakow, in fact my mother was born there, and so it's a city I've visited many times over the years. By some miracle, the historic centre survived the Second World War and so you can walk around today and get the feel of how the city would have been at the time my novel is set in 1817.

In the novel I names the streets where the main characters live and have set scenes in notable places that still survive today including the 15th century Collegium Maius (the oldest part of the University) and the famous 14th century gothic St Mary's Basilica in the main market square. If you visit Krakow do visit these places and if you walk the streets of the old town you'll be able to get a sense of how some of the action in Krakow Waltz is played out.

Balice forest, a notable venue for duels in the 19th century, is now where Krakow airport is situated. (A little like Hounslow Heath which is now London's Heathrow airport.) And Castle Szalynski in the countryside is loosely based on Niedzica Castle in Southern Poland. I revisited Niedzica the summer and will post some photos next time I blog.

To celebrate the publication of Krakow Waltz there is a giveaway contest on goodreads.com. Closing date is 31st August so hurry to be in with a chance to win one of three copies.

Kate Allan

A Regency with a different setting

The final cover for Krakow Waltz, my "Polish Regency", to be published next year, has arrived (left). The photograph used for the background is really Krakow - it's a detail from a picture I took when visiting the city a few years ago.

Krakow is a place close to my heart. I have visited enough times to have lost count, and my mother mother's family still live there. My grandparents met there during the Second World War. A terrible time for many in the city, but their story has a touch of romance. It was winter, bitterly cold, and my grandmother came across my grandfather selling nylons out of a suitcase in the market and thought he looked chilled and under-nourished and so took him home to feed him up.

I was interested to discover that at the Vienna Peace Settlement in 1815, Krakow was designated a "free city". (The rest of Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and the Austrian Empire.) Along with civic and cultural "improvements", such as tearing down the old medieval walls to make a circular park ("Planty") around the old city centre, it would have been rather a melting-pot where the cause of Polish nationalism lived on. The city was a mixture of narrow medieval streets and newer boulevards. Having walked the streets of Krakow Old Town it is easy to imagine them as a setting for intrigue. While the nobility largely adopted the (French) fashions of Europe, there remained pockets of "Polishness", and in Krakow Waltz, I left the city for a time, taking the characters into the countryside where there meet wolves and wild boar, and where the banquets are in "the old Polish style".

Krakow in the second decade of the nineteenth century seemed to me to be calling out to be the setting for a Regency adventure and romance and I'm very much hoping readers will enjoy the unusual setting.

Kate

www.kateallan.com