Eleanor Herman reigns at her `Legacy of Kings' NPC Book Rap

National Press Club member Eleanor Herman chose to write about Alexander the Great at 16 because not much is known about him before he is 20, which gave her more freedom to write, she said at an Aug. 26 NPC Book Rap on her debut novel, Legacy of Kings.

The young Alexander is one of six main characters in the story – three males and three females -- all with intricate plots surrounding them, Herman said. It was her job as a writer to make these characters attractive and courageous as they go through various conflicts in the story line, she added.

Herman, resplendent in her period costume, was interviewed by former NPC President Larry Lippman, who teased her about it, asking if she “always dresses this way.”

“Dressing for 2015 is boring,” she said, adding she will use “any excuse to dress like a Greek queen.” This was the first of many laughs evoked by a thoroughly witty and charming Herman throughout the evening.

Lippman asked how much was fact and how much was fiction in Legacy. According to Eleanor, the places, weapons and battles were all true, and actually happened. Three of the main characters are fictional and added a lot of depth to the plot. She said she especially loved writing the “nasty and malicious” female characters, because they expressed a side of human nature we all choose not to express but the fun in writing them was that they “can’t hurt anybody on paper.”

Asked during the question-and-answer session why she chose Alexander and not Julius Caesar or another figure from the Greco-Roman period as the main subject, she replied that he was a “pivotal character in history who led tens of thousands of men into India, and would have probably led them to China if his men hadn't mutinied because they wanted to go back home.” His conquests opened up “the flow of goods and ideas between the East and West,” she added.

Lippman opened by announcing that Legacy of Kings, the first in a proposed series of four books known as the Blood of Gods and Royals, sold out on its first day on Amazon. It is also out as an audio book, and rights to the series were sold to WB television with Simon Helberg producing.

In responding to social media, Herman realized there was a need for more diversity in her characters. In her research she found that the “ancient Greco-Roman world welcomed dark-skinned Sub-Saharan Africans without racial prejudice,” she said. She is adding two African characters to the second book in the series, which she is presently writing.

Legacy of Kings, being published by Harlequin Teen, represents young-adult fiction meant to appeal to anyone from a teenager to “older adults,” Herman explained, adding that Twilight, Hunger Games and Divergent were all in that genre.

Herman also showed the four trailers produced for the web to promote the book. The event was her fifth Book Rap. She has previously appeared for her books Sex With Kings, Sex With the Queen, Mistress of the Vatican, and King Peggy.

Herman and Lippman are both active members of the NPC’s Book & Author Committee. They were introduced by co-chairman Joe Motheral and co-vice-chairman Heather Forsgren Weaver.