Hey friend, today I have something a little different. I sat down recently with the author

Frederick Fahey, who after an impressive career as a medical physicist at Boston Children's

Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has taken a fascinating turn into the world of historical

fiction. His debut novel is The Scoundrel Sun and it picks up where Mark Twain's the Prince

and the Popper left off,

but not in the way that you might expect. Fred takes us on a journey through the Tudor world

following Tom Canty as he grows up in the royal court befriends Edward the 6th meets Lady

Jane Gray and wrestles with what it means to be a good person in a complicated world.

In this conversation, we talk about what inspired Fred to give Tom his own voice,

how he blended fictional and historical characters, and why friendship, loss, and identity are at the

heart of this story. Plus, we get the inside scoop on the incredible book cover,

which was designed by the same artist who did The Wicked Book Cover. So that's a fun connection.

If you want to be part of these chats and discussions live, you can do that by becoming a patron

or a member. So going to patreon.com slash Englandcast or just clicking join this channel.

We do pretty regular monthly author chats with authors like Fred and others. So thanks so much for

watching. Let's dive right in and learn more about Edward the 6th. And if you're a fan of Mark Twain

and the Prince of the Popper, this is definitely going to be one you want to watch the whole way through. All right. Let's get into it. All right. So you have this wonderful book. You have the, oh, you should tell me before we even get started the story behind the cover of your book because you shared something very interesting about that, the scoundrel son. Tell me about this beautiful cover. So, you know, one of the

advantages of going to a small publisher is they said, you do the cover. You know, my writing

coach told me, she doesn't even think Stephen King gets to pick what his cover looks like. But there's

some, so I live in this island off of Portland, Maine, called Peaks Island. And there's some very talented illustrators on the island.

And one happens to be Doug Smith.

So he lives about maybe three quarters of a mile from here.

...