Helena P. Schrader’s recent works have been awarded Readers’ Favorite Gold, a Feathered Quill, a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, Chaucer Awards, and indieBRAG Medallions. Helena’s newest novel is The Last Crusader Kingdom: Dawn of a Dynasty in Twelfth-Century Cyprus, and I invited her to talk to me today. Readers, you are in for a treat – Helena brought pictures!

Welcome to my blog, Helena!

Thanks for having me, Char!

Your new novel, The Last Crusader Kingdom: Dawn of a Dynasty in Twelfth-Century Cyprus, begins after the events of Third Crusade, which you wrote about in your excellent Balian d’Ibelin series. This novel has ties to the earlier series, but it can stand on its own. What is this book about?

In a sentence: the establishment of a Latin (crusader) kingdom on the previously Byzantine island of Cyprus in the late 12^th century.

Since that probably sounds fairly boring to…