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Read 10% of this novel online!READER ALERT / CAVEAT:

Four editions produced.
1. GMP: 1995
2. DreamCraft: 2003
3. ebook: 2007
4. New edition: 2008.

Read the first 10% of this novel online!

Desert storm, ‘djinn’ and the riders from Hell ... Saracen, Templar and dark sorcerer ... unholy adventure in an age of holy war! 

 It is a time of conquest in which the Saxon is almost a slave in his own country, and the Holy Land is sundered by unholy war out of which there can be no winners, no real victors. And for young men like Paul Delgado and Edward of Aethelstan, no place is safe. Their own home is as filled with danger as the battlefields of Palestine, for they are men who love men, in an age when such love is forbidden.

On the very threshold of manhood, Paul is a landless, penniless orphan with no future — unless it is to follow the young Earl of Aethelstan to war. But Edward has no desire to sell his sword and his soul to a blood- soaked Crusade where mercy is rare, cruelty is commonplace, and the dark sorcery of an unknown land might easily swallow a man whole.

To repair the patchwork fortunes of the House of Aethelstan, Edward commits himself to the Crusade ... for love of the young Saxon knight, Paul sails with the eastbound ships, in the company of Normans, Templars, soldiers and squires. Before he returns, he will be a man grown, with an epic story to tell of bloodshed and sorcery, sublime sensuality, and a timeless love. Dust-veiled battlefields and the candlelit bedchambers of Saracen captains are his memories: silk and steel, delight and despair, and the magic and mayhem of a half-forgotten age.

Sensual in character, vast in scope, White Rose of Night is a haunting romance set within a thrilling adventure, with a twist of high fantasy. Back in print, from the acclaimed author of FORTUNES OF WAR and the award-winning historical, THE DECEIVERS.

Pullquote:
Mel Keegan’s name is a byword for thrilling gay adventure in the past, present and future — MILLIVRES on Aquamarine.

Mel Keegan comments

on WHITE ROSE OF NIGHT

Of all my novels to date, this was the hardest to write, and it's the "strangest" too. It's a period of history where fact, myth, allegory and legend start to weave together until you realize, in the midst of your research, you're not perfectly sure where the line lies between fact and fiction. Also, WHITE ROSE was a story which desperately wanted to take off into fantasy. I kept as tight a rein on it as I could, saving fantasy for future novels, but the location and the era begged for the outrageous, the strange, elements which challenge the senses. There a delicious sub-plot about a "black sorcerer" and a gorgeous Tartar youth, taken prisoner after a drunken raid, which is right out of fantasy. It was enormous fun to write. The research was confounding, and in fact the book was beta-read in various forms and drafts prior to submission, because it can be difficult to "get a feel" for a period in history that's far enough in the past for its people to have become strangers. I tried very hard indeed to make my depiction and treatment of the Muslim characters fair and objective (hence, the previous forms, drafts and beta reading), and to answer a question asked of me a long time ago, yes, I actually did read the Koran to get this one right — you can get it as a Penguin paperback. In fact, it just appeared as an interactive CD-Rom, which is ... curious. WHITE ROSE was as intensely difficult to write as AN EAST WIND BLOWING was easy. How well I succeeded with it is something I leave for readers to decide! (In fact, the reader reviews for WHITE ROSE and FORTUNES OF WAR, on line at Amazon.com, are often immensely gratifying). One parting shot here: the character of Paul is aged 15, but don't leap to the conclusion he's a child. In that era, the human lifespan was shorter, people matured sooner and were often married with children at 12. At 15, Paul was not just old to be a squire ... he should rightly have been a soldier! I certainly couldn't make him any older, but on the other hand I sure wasn't going to make him any younger. Suffice to say, at 15, Paul is about the equivalent of a 20 year old in our modern world.

Preparing this one for the new edition was a real pleasure ... a little like a trip through time, too. For a while it seemed I was transported back through ten years, and I vididly recall doing the research for WHITE ROSE. It did take a lot of backgrounding, but research can get to be a hobby and you enjoy it. I went this same road with THE DECEIVERS; but time and technology had overtaken me by that time, and a lot of the research was done on the Web. Back in '94, for WHITE ROSE, I hit the books, and one in particular was a jewel.

 This was it ... "1066: THE YEAR OF THE CONQUEST," by David Howarth. And if you have an interest in this period, I can't recommend it highly enough. It wasn't that Howarth novelized that year — far from it. But he focused on the 'social history' of the period ... on the people and the forces driving them, until a work of non-fic came alive. (I don't think it's still available; it was done in 1977. The publisher was William Collins, if you want to take a shot at tracking it down).

Working my way through WHITE ROSE was odd in many ways ... in ten years the substance and texture of my writing has changed, it's true. My plots are more complex (one reader recently commented that the weave of SCORPIO is so dense, you almost feel as if you should take notes!) By contrast, WHITE ROSE is simple; it's certainly linear. It's my third 'coming of age' story (the others being FORTUNES OF WAR and AN EAST WIND BLOWING), and I'm working on the plotline for another novel which falls into the same genre (boy becomes man), but the location is Mars, the timeframe, maybe 100 years in the future. That'll be interesting.

WHITE ROSE is probably the most sensual novel I've ever done, too. ICE, WIND AND FIRE was sexy, but WHITE ROSE is sensual (there's a world of difference, in fact). And it was also the first chance I'd had to sneak a fantasy past an editor without him noticing it! There's a wide streak of the fantastical in this one, but it's set in a real historical time ... the only other tale I can liken it too, to give you a clue about what I mean is, LADYHAWKE. But my story is set in the same approximate location as EAST WIND and even THE DECEIVERS ... before it takes off across the world. Something like 24 out of 30 chapters take place in the Holy Land of the very early Thirteenth Century. And it's exotic beyond words.



WHITE ROSE OF NIGHT
REVIEWED BY GALEN

White Rose came the 31st; I make it about 10 days from your door to mine -- not bad. It's wonderful, by the way (my only complaint is I read it too fast!). The emotional warmth and sensual heat of the central relationship would make it riveting even without the setting (palpable), historical plot (rich) and secondary characters (vibrant). Fortunes of War and Nocturne did the same, and it's terrific that MK sustains those qualities from novel to novel. I'm reading (and enjoying) Aquamarine and Storm Tide right now, which I got via Amazon Marketplace. As soon as I get my tax refund (*grin*) I'll place a new order (thanks much for the offer of the discount - I'll keep that in mind and order three at a time!). I must say, DC's customer service and communications (e-mails from you, web site) are fantastic; y'all do a great job!

Cheers, Galen