tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82334826952639379912024-03-14T02:26:44.929-07:00Royalty Free Fictionhistory is full of ordinary people with extraordinary storiesDeborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-72689577491988855662013-09-21T07:47:00.000-07:002013-09-21T07:47:01.153-07:00The Midwife's Secret/The Other Daughter - Linda Root<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><br />When I finished the novel "The Midwife's Secret: The Mystery of the Hidden Princess" I knew the story was not truly finished, and that there was another character, a second Marguerite Kirkcaldy, a child born within weeks of her famous father's execution. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What would become of her? I asked, since history does not give provide so much as a clue other than a brief reference to the existence of a pretty laundress to whom he wrote love poems while awaiting execution - and who had given birth to his child. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The knight’s records were destroyed by his enemies and not even a notation of the child’s sex survives. It was all up to my imagination, and thus, a little girl named Daisy was born. Would she be guileless like her beautiful mother, or heroic and unpredictable like the knight Kirkcaldy of Grange? What would she do when she learned that there had been another Marguerite Kirkcaldy also nicknamed Daisy and claimed by Kirkcaldy as his love child? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The first Daisy had arrived mysteriously at the castle before the Lang Siege and disappeared under a cloud before it fell. Does Daisy have a hidden sister who was spirited away, or is there more to the story of the Other Daughter that even Daisy's mother is willing to disclose? <br /><br />While Daisy approaches adulthood, weathering an infatuation with her flamboyant nephew, Sir Andrew Ker of Ferniehirst, and dealing with her attraction to the bastard of another controversial Scot, Will Hepburn, who is the 4th Earl of Bothwell’s son, will other rumors reach her ears? Could news of a beautiful Benedictine nun at Saint Pierre les Dames in Rheims called La Belle Écossaise but whose proper name is Sister Marguerite de’ Kircaldie drive Daisy from the secure life she leads in Canongate to a quest with implications touching the future of the Stuart dynasty? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> The challenge of a meeting of the Marguerites became irresistible, and Daisy's quest became my own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Other-Daughter-Midwifes-Secret-Queen/dp/148418243X">The Other Daughter </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4858632.Linda_Root">Linda's Goodreads page</a></span><br clear="all" /></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-38928841655707587502013-09-18T07:30:00.000-07:002013-09-18T07:30:04.617-07:00The Seventh Season - Emmanuel of Samaria - by Kit Hudson<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<i>Rosalind James : Well I’m not technically the author, but I have some very good reasons for publishing The Seventh Season...</i><br /><br />In February 2013, I received a letter from the executor of a distant relative’s will informing me that I was one of the beneficiaries. My relative, Kit Hudson, was an academic and historian who moved to Greece in the 1960s for reasons that were never particularly clear. A few weeks after I received the executor’s letter, a crate arrived from Greece containing oil pressed from olives grown in Kit’s garden and – at the bottom of the crate – an old leather box. When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was a handwritten note that simply said:</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some secrets are meant to be told </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />Beneath the note were several hundred type-written pages of yellowed foolscap paper, and as I began to read I realised I had the original typescript of a book Kit had published in 1965. The Seventh Season – essentially an old fashioned epic adventure that just happens to feature one of the Apostles – had been translated from 2nd Century texts known as the Aksum Scrolls. On publication, it seems The Seventh Season created a bit of a controversy (presumably because of the Christian content) and Kit went into hiding in Greece for the rest of his life. I read the text immediately and was dumbfounded that anyone could have found it controversial enough to condemn it – it really is just a ripping yarn with a mad Emperor (Nero), an ancient desert curse and some unrequited love thrown in for good measure – and I immediately knew I had to find a way of re-publishing the text. I'm delighted to say that it has just gone on sale and I feel like it’s my duty to bring it to as many people’s attention as possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And - There’s plenty more background at </span><a href="http://seventhseason.com/" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://seventhseason.com</a></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-58555557949989429782013-09-12T14:55:00.000-07:002013-09-12T14:55:00.976-07:00The Arrow of Sherwood by Lauren Johnson<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Arrow-of-Sherwood/p/4101/"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KdOD36iEo4U/Uh0fajzv4xI/AAAAAAAAB-c/K30PDBnK-M0/s320/Arrow+of+Sherwood+cover.JPG" width="207" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The story of Robin Hood is one that has bewitched me since I was a child. Many
is the woodland walk where I toddled along in my wellies and mack, dawdling
behind my parents as I imagined outlaws hidden in the ruins of tumbledown walls,
or scurrying between the shelter of trees. But my story of Robin, which
ultimately became The Arrow of Sherwood, started to take shape the spring after
I finished university. I was working at a castle in South Wales and commuting
from Bristol every day to get there - on the long bus ride, and particularly the
walk from station to castle, I played out these old scenarios in more detail.
Slowly, characters began to emerge: Marian and Robin, nobly born and unwillingly
betrothed since childhood; Will Scarlette, Robin's illegitimate half-brother,
with a gift of the gab and charm that got him out of the danger his quick temper
got him into; a Sheriff of Nottingham who might be self-serving but certainly
was not a villain.<br /><br />Somehow, five years passed. The characters were still
somewhere in my mind, but they never got beyond a few hastily scribbled pages. I
moved to London, got a job that I loved but took up too much mental space to
leave any for writing, planned a wedding, got married. And that is when Robin
appeared again. This time I was determined to tell his story properly. I had
spent the intervening time working in incredible heritage sites, not least the
Tower of London and Great Tower of Dover Castle, buildings that were old enough
to have been seen by Robin and his friends when they were brand new. I had
worked in medieval costume, loosing catapults in a drained moat, running up and
down spiral staircases, stood in the rain and mist while men careered about
under the castle walls on horseback. And in order to do this job, I had
researched more and more deeply the medieval period I was interpreting.<br /><br />I
had also read and watched a fair amount of historical fiction - some of it
brilliant, some of it dire. And what I wanted was to tell a story of Robin Hood
that was not about a mythical figure, witches or wood spirits or fat monks or
leering knights, but instead was rooted in the twelfth century world I had come
to know and love. An alien culture in many ways, where violence or its threat
was never far removed, where death hung in the scales for thousands, to be
decided by forces beyond their control - a vicious frost or sodden crops could
wipe out whole families, and painted saints were the only intercessors they
could rely on. And into this world I dropped a man called Robin of Locksley,
who would have to negotiate the law courts, ordeal, divided loyalties, brute
force, and the distant but defiant rumbles of civil war.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Twitter: @History_Lauren<br />Web: <a href="http://laurenjohnson1.wordpress.com/">http://laurenjohnson1.wordpress.com</a></span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-63996347167692781262013-09-09T14:38:00.000-07:002013-09-09T14:38:00.348-07:00Rebel Puritan and The Reputed Wife by Jo Ann Butler<div class="gmail_quote">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My love for colonial America is rooted from 1963, when National Geographic ran an article about Pompeii. I read the issue to shreds and made plans to become an archeologist. Ten years later I worked on my first dig. Though it was in a Connecticut mill village, not Pompeii, I was hooked anyway. A knee injury forced me out of the field, so I channeled my deep interest in colonial America into genealogy. There I met Herodias (Long) Hicks Gardner Porter, my 8th-great grandmother from 17th century Rhode Island. <br /><br /> <br />Genealogists began writing about Herodias in the 1880s, and their assessments of her character were dreadful. 'Redoubtable and undoubtedly glamorous' was the most favorable; lurid and neurotic were more typical. Herodias was separated from her first husband, John Hicks, by Rhode Island's governor when Hicks' abuse endangered Herodias' life. Amazingly, most genealogists sided with Hicks, who described his ex-wife as a whore. The more I explored Herodias' life, the more I was convinced that she was maligned, and wanted to tell Herodias' story from her point of view. Herodias married John Hicks when she was only thirteen, and perhaps he took advantage of a naive girl separated from her family. George Gardner, Herodias' second husband and a target of John Hicks' wrath, may well have protected Herodias from John Hicks' beatings. <br /> <br /><br /> <br />Genealogists clucked because years after she took up with George, Herodias sought a divorce from him. Why? Because the couple had never been legally married, and George Gardner was not providing for their seven children. It's my belief that Herodias refused to wed, and become the property of another husband after her sad experience with John Hicks. She had watched him abscond with their children and her inheritance, legal acts under English law. Rhode Island was scandalized when Herodias revealed that she and George weren't married, but Herodias got her separation. Herodias' neighbors were even more shocked when she took up with an affluent man old enough to be her father. However, John Porter made her seven Gardner his heirs, and Herodias' two Hicks children benefited from his estate as well. Herodias said that George hadn't provided for her children, but Porter did exactly that. <br /><br /> <br />Herodias Long steered her life in a way that few 17th century women did, including royalty, and I love her for her vision. She put her body on the line in her defense of Quaker missionaries who were being whipped and tortured by New England's Puritans. Knowing she faced the whipping post, Herodias walked sixty miles to protest the cruelty, was flogged and jailed, and I love her for her boldness. I just had to write about this amazing woman! <br /><br /> <br />You can learn more about Herodias Long, and find Rebel Puritan and The Reputed Wife, the first books in my Herodias Long trilogy at <a href="http://www.rebelpuritan.com/">http://www.rebelpuritan.com/</a>. </span><div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<br /><a href="http://rebelpuritan.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://rebelpuritan.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-68258615981497027082013-09-04T14:11:00.000-07:002013-09-04T14:11:00.851-07:00An Army of Judiths by C.J. Underwood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/C.J.-Underwood/e/B00E9W5I5C"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pd8YsCnL2cM/Uh0Vbrsog5I/AAAAAAAAB90/W4OJAST8-t0/s320/book+cover+Judiths.BMP" width="225" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">‘She brought
Haarlem to the edge of victory, and the enemy to its knees’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">I first encountered the legend of Kenau
Hasselaar when I overheard a professor and his students at the University of
Leiden’s library in 1994, and was immediately captivated. The professor spoke
about the savage sixteenth century Dutch Revolt against the invading Spanish
King Phillip II, the revolt that inspired one woman’s fight to preserve the
lifestyle that her family had nurtured for generations. Kenau’s battle was the
seven-month Siege of Haarlem, 1572-1573. The professor recited the legend of
this spirited aristocrat who had been driven to form an army of three hundred
women soldiers. He said that Kenau had trained them to fight the Spanish back
from the walls of Haarlem, but had refused to wear armour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">From the moment Kenau entered my
consciousness, I determined to learn every possible detail about this
inspirational female character, a woman that was grist to the mill of my own
life story. Although I’d always written, I had spent my career at the time
travelling a man’s world; I’d thought nothing of working as a chef in all-male
brigades, and was the first woman in the British Merchant Navy to work in the
North Sea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">My first surprise was that in the
Netherlands the name <i>Kenau</i> was
synonymous with the derogative, <i>Bitch</i>.
If Kenau Hasselaar had indeed been a Dutch war heroine, I couldn’t understand
why she was so maligned by modern Dutch society. After a thorough search of the
Amsterdam women’s library, and various other institutions, I was baffled to
find nothing more solid than a couple of cursory, albeit reliable, reference
works and some old, unreliable stories of Kenau’s part in the siege. I found a
tapestry of Kenau in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, but it wasn’t until some years
later that paintings of Kenau Hasselaar were available online.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">It seemed to me that legends have a lot
to answer for, after all these years the fable that Kenau Hasselaar was a
dedicated cutthroat for the sake of it should have morphed into something more
honourable. She may indeed have been a hellcat, but she must have been so much
more besides. Some legends just beg interrogation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">Having visited Haarlem many times to research Kenau
Hasselaar’s role in the siege, I enlisted the help of a few eminent historians,
one of whom explained that Kenau must have been a frequent visitor to the
Cityhouse to meet with Haarlem’s magistrates in order to collect writs that
she’d handed to her debtors, some whom lived as far afield as Delft. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">Luckily, those official meetings were well documented,
otherwise no personal information would have survived about Kenau’s lifestyle,
at least publically. One historian suggested to me that Kenau might have been
quite an unwelcome sight at the Cityhouse, just for that reason alone. I don’t
think she’d have been too happy with anyone poking about in her affairs,
however, which is why I was so keen to get my facts right. My novel rigorously
follows the historical details of the siege itself, which was fortunately well
documented. It is a remarkable history that needs no embellishment, and the
more I discovered, the deeper went my respect for Kenau Hasselaar, and indeed
all the courageous citizens of Haarlem, particularly the women who withstood
the brutality of sixteenth century warfare. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">My second big surprise was that in Northern Europe at the
time, when a city was under attack, women had always fought. Towns and cities
were built with ramparts, they were formed as citadels, or bastions, and when
attacked everyone defended their home. This was early modern feminism in
action. Women were probably more vicious in battle than we’ve ever given them
credit for, and as a woman I feel particularly touched by accounts of man’s
inhumanity towards women. I immediately put myself in Kenau’s shoes; as a
mature Dutch woman, mother, and no fool, Kenau must have known that once those
marauding Spaniards broke through the bulwarks and gates of Haarlem, she and
her daughters, sisters and nieces would lose their lives in ways too terrible
to contemplate. So Kenau wasted no time in contemplating the obvious; she
rounded up three hundred of Haarlem’s toughest, most formidable women, and
taught them how to defend themselves; to fight off the enemy, and to protect
their beloved city. But first they rebuilt the decrepit walls of Haarlem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">Then they waited. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">I believe that writing about any
national legend carries a great deal of responsibility, but having researched
the war in great detail, including Haarlem’s and Kenau’s role in the siege, I
agree with certain academics that Kenau’s name has, at times, been denigrated.
Legends can be exaggerated, but they don’t make themselves. I am always gripped
by the sort of mind that cannot even contemplate defeat. Perhaps Kenau would
not have been the sort of woman you’d want at your dinner party, and quite a
challenging woman to get to know, or even like, on a personal level. As a
character she certainly eluded me for a good while. I owe a debt of gratitude
to those who have researched and written about Kenau Hasselaar, whatever their
bias.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.cjunderwood.com/"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';">http://www.cjunderwood.com</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style';"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-7577012640755723882013-09-02T14:21:00.000-07:002013-09-02T14:21:00.086-07:00Spy Island by Sophie Schiller<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Island-Sophie-Schiller/dp/1481181718/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376577159&sr=8-1&keywords=spy+island"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gdMnGBzPvik/Uh0XY_L5QlI/AAAAAAAAB-A/UtE45LCLD_o/s320/Spy.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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As a child growing up in the island of St. Thomas, I used to spend hours roaming through the side streets and alleyways of Charlotte Amalie, admiring the Danish colonial architecture, wondering at the Danish street names, and drinking in the rich history behind this beautiful former Danish colony that captured the imagination of such historical figures as Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the Pirate, Henry Morgan, the exiled Mexican General Santa Anna, and the American Writer Herman Wouk. A single, nagging question always returned time and time again: Why aren't there more novels detailing the rich, vibrant history of the Danish West Indies? After all, the islands have been praised for their beauty for centuries. The capital, Charlotte Amalie, possesses one of the most splendid natural harbors in the world. For inspiration, all a writer would have to do is gaze at her rolling green hills dotted with colorful flowers, lush tropical flora, Danish watch towers, and ubiquitous red-roofed houses. Since no novel yet existed that could satisfy my desire to read about this fascinating place, I decided to write my own. And that is the seed that germinated into my novel "Spy Island".<br /><br /><br />When I finally decided to write that novel, it took me about a year to develop a plot in which a local girl, Abigail Maduro, the scion of an old Sephardic merchant family, returns to St. Thomas after her parents are killed in a railway along the Panama Canal to live with her aunt, a bitter spinster and her household of eccentric servants. One day, while out running an errand, she stumbles into a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a deserter from a German U-boat. In Erich Seibold, Abby finds the friendship and love she has been craving. She hides him in the basement of her aunt's house, but unbeknownst to them, the island's German Consul, Lothar Langsdorff, also discovers Erich's true identity as a deserter, and uses this information to blackmail him into committing sabotage and murder on the eve of the islands' transfer to the United States, in order to scare away the Americans. <br /><br /><br />Along the way, many wonderful people helped me develop my story, including the Grandson of the man who was the real Director of the Hamburg-America Line office who was accused of the Americans of spying for Germany and arrested by the US Marines in 1917 right after the Transfer ceremony and after the US declared war on Germany. I also acquired a new lifelong friend in the Croatian military historian who helped me conjure up Erich's back story and his life-altering journey from the Azores to the West Indies on a Spanish tramp steamer. But most important, in the end, I succeeded in bringing to life the last days of a floundering Danish sugar colony in the West Indies with all its charm, nuance, and color. My wish was finally fulfilled and my own journey had come to an end. So treat yourself to Spy Island for a Caribbean journey unlike any other you'll ever have, a journey right into history.</span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-47880197341487156562013-08-27T14:02:00.000-07:002013-08-27T14:02:50.840-07:00Sultana: Two Sisters by Lisa J Yarde<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sultana-Sisters-Novel-Moorish-ebook/dp/B00E3N0AAK"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OdZ3yXX2-bY/Uhz5d5PK7CI/AAAAAAAAB9k/tzbab-YSV-E/s320/Sultana_TwoSisters_SW_iBooks.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Prior
to writing <i>Sultana: Two Sisters</i>, I
had not envisioned a six-part series on the Nasrid Dynasty. Two years ago,
after a long fascination with the matriarch of the last Muslim dynasty to rule
in Spain, I released <i>Sultana</i> and <i>Sultana’s Legacy</i>. Lingering interest
became an obsession that would not go away, even after other novels took me in
different directions. Some readers kept asking if there would be another book
on Moorish Spain, but I adopted a wait-and-see approach. Once the first books
did well, including a foreign rights deal, I felt confident enough to pursue
the tale of the next generation of Nasrids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Spain
has always been an amalgamation of various cultures and religions. After
thousands of years under the Celts, Romans and Visigoths, the last major
invasion began in 711, when Arabs and Berbers took the peninsula. They might
have claimed France if Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, had not
halted their advance twenty years later. Christian kingdoms slowly pushed back
the Moorish tide in the <i>Reconquista </i>until
the late 1200’s when only Muslim Granada remained. Still, almost eight hundred
years of Moorish rule left its mark on Spain’s identity as a Catholic nation,
and on its music, foods and language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why
do I find Moorish Spain and this particular family so interesting? The Nasrids
ruled from their hilltop fortress of the Alhambra from 1232 and held out for
260 years. Castile considered Granada as a vassal rather than an enemy for most
of that period and demanded annual tribute payments rather than expanding its
borders. Muslim Granada exemplified the idea of the Spanish melting pot, as
Christian women became the mothers of Moorish Sultans, men who employed
Christians as their personal bodyguards. Theirs was a kingdom in its death
throes, weakened internally by infighting between fathers and sons, and among
brothers rather than the lackluster attacks of Christian adversaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
this period, women whom we might think of as trapped behind harem walls played
important roles. Their choices affected the history of the dynasty. One of the
most influential women was Fatima, the heroine of <i>Sultana</i> and <i>Sultana’s Legacy</i>,
who was the descendant of the first two rulers of the dynasty, sister to the
next two, and ancestress of all who followed until the royal line ended with
Isabel and Ferdinand’s capture of Granada in 1492. Then there were the Christian
slaves Butayna and Maryam, the main characters of <i>Sultana: Two Sisters</i> whose rivalry extended beyond harem walls and toppled
the legitimate ruler. With all the internal strife, dysfunctional family
interactions and intrigue that beset the Nasrid Dynasty for centuries, I could
not help but write about such a family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
are other reasons why the history is so appealing. The past is usually the
story of the victors, those left alive to chronicle events, and history too
often becomes “his story”, the exploits of the men at the forefront of
momentous change. Propaganda and biases on both sides of the Moorish and
Christian frontiers make a full account difficult, but the contributions of
Moorish society to the Spain we know today remain evident. In addition, the
role of women and their impact merits greater exploration. My goal with the
series is to shed light on a period that remains a mystery to many, while attempting
to provide good and interesting stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These
stories have required an enormous amount of research, which started back in
1995 when I was a junior in college. If there is an English language book about
Moorish Spain, I have probably read or bought it in the last 18 years. While
study was critical in writing the first books of the series, and I often return
to the sources, I also remind myself that no one wants to read the history of
the Nasrids; entertainment is the goal. There are elements of the past, Moorish
culture and the language included to give a real sense of time and place, but
not so much as to bog down the plot. I am a storyteller at heart, even if I
lose countless hours on details that never make it on to the page. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.lisajyarde.com/">Lisa's website </a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-11278772869503096172013-08-15T02:11:00.000-07:002013-08-15T13:09:52.827-07:00The Lady in the Spitfire by Helena P Schrader<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As a girl, I went to boarding school in London. I was very lonely, and ended up spending much of my free time in museums. One of my favorite museums became the Imperial War Museum, with its magnificent display of WWII aircraft. From the aircraft it was a small step to books about the Battle of Britain -- and "the Few." Soon I was also visiting the airfields; Tangmere, for example, was close enough to visit it more than once. Before long I was imagining a story and I started work on a manuscript while in college. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But soon other projects took precedence. While working on my Masters in International Relations, I discovered the German Resistance to Hitler. This soon became the topic of my doctoral dissertation. The dissertation was first published in Germany by an academic publisher, then re-written for the English-speaking market and published by Sutton Publishing in the UK. Based on hundreds of interviews and material irrelevant to the dissertation itself, I produced my first novel, An Obsolete Honor: A Story of the German Resistance to Hitler. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet all the while the idea of a novel about the Battle of Britain continued to nag at me. I returned to the topic, now with experience of a PhD in history and the ability to read and research in German as well. I decided to write a book that would follow the fate of men -- and the women they loved -- on both sides of the Channel. I sought out the memoirs of RAF and Luftwaffe pilots and obtained detailed histories that recorded the sorties, the claimed(and actual) "kills" each day, the damage to airfields etc. and got to work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chasing the Wind was the result of that research combined with my enduring passion for the people involved in this critical battle in history -- the ground crews and controllers as much as the pilots. It seeks to capture the tension and uncertainty of this critical phase of the war -- and highlight how many different people in different jobs were involved in the outcome. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.helenapschrader.com/wpimages/wpfea5933a_0a_06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="chasing the wind" border="0" src="http://www.helenapschrader.com/wpimages/wpfea5933a_0a_06.jpg" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But Chasing the Wind ends when the Battle of Britain did, in the fall of 1940, and -- as we all know -- the war was far from over. Chasing the Wind was a long book already and it had a conclusion that was right for it -- but readers kept writing me to say "But what happened to...." Just as important, the characters wouldn't leave me alone either. Chasing the Wind was finished, but the story was not. There was more to tell. So I sat down and wrote a sequel, The Lady in the Spitfire. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Lady in the Spitfire practically wrote itself. The characters were by then so much a part of me, that I knew what they would do and say in a new set of circumstances. Furthermore, by this point -- after the PhD and the research for Chasing the Wind -- I knew the clothing, customs and even the jargon -- of the period. The amount of research necessary was minimal. I have rarely had so much fun writing a novel! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">BUY THE BOOKS:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Wind-Schrader-May-01-2007-Paperback/dp/B00A9ZHOC8/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375987653&sr=1-17&keywords=Helena+P.+Schrader"><em>Chasing the Wind:</em> </a> </span></div>
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<var><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Eagles-Never-Flew-ebook/dp/B005UGCZFC/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375986560&sr=1-3&keywords=Helena+P.+Schrader">Where Eagles Never Flew: </a> </span></var></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Spitfire-Helena-Schrader/dp/0595401511/ref=sr_1_25?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375987734&sr=1-25&keywords=Helena+P.+Schrader">The Lady in the Spitfire:</a> </i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://www.helenapschrader.com/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Helena's website</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The telling of good deeds is like alms and charity; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">it is never lost labour but always has its return." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Chandos' Herald ca. 1386</span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-6135871517779178922013-08-06T08:52:00.000-07:002013-08-06T08:56:24.915-07:00Souvenirs by Keith C Chase<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is a story about luck and how it affects the minds of a mythical group of American Army infantrymen. It is also the story of a young Corporal struggling to retain his sanity after two years of combat. The story takes place in October 1944 where the Americans are attempting to surround the city of Aachen, Germany; had the attempt on Hitler's life three months earlier been successful, hundreds of lives would have been saved as there would have been no need for the desperate battles of that fall.<br /><br />I had just completed a one year seven month tour of duty providing security at the American Embassy, Bonn, West Germany. This will be a book too someday. I returned stateside on Dec. 27, 1983. I had spent years researching the interesting yet terrible and tragic history of W.W. 2 and the Third Reich. Not only had I been immersed in European New Wave and the huge cold war missile deployment situation and many other things but it never left my thoughts that all of these issues were taking place directly in the shadows of the then not so old Nazi era.<br /><br />I shall add that I and all of my German friends were anti Nazi and anti communist. I wanted a direct link to the Germans and Americans who fought the war . I wanted the bloodshed and hatred but also examples of mercy and goodwill that also took place in that sad and massive war. I was myself on a big and never ending quest for W.W. 2 German military items. Much to my sorrow most of West Germany had been picked clean by the time I was selected to pull duty there. I decided in 1984 when I went back to live with my then German girlfriend that a realistic war novel about German souvenirs would be great. To the best of my knowledge no writer had ever examined such a plot. All historical aspects had to be accurately covered. I am obligated and honored to declare that without the support of Rita Rittinga and her brother, Erich and his family of Aachen, Souvenirs would have taken much longer to accomplish. <br /><br />By 1985 I had interviewed many American vets in addition to a great many former German soldiers. Something most positive was an almost complete lack of any remaining animosity or hatred from these men. This new information was combined with info I had gleaned from American vets I spoke with while growing up in the 60's and 70's. I also hiked through many of the old battle sites, and I'm not talking about those nice, marked, easy to find trails either! I did not want to create characters, rather I must have totally understandable "real," "story people with their very own concerns and souls". Then I need, for example, the reader to be just as chilly, fearful, tired and angry as our story people are. Finally, I must have the correct slang, movies ,music, and lifestyles, not to mention those people and loved ones they also left behind.</span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-50142494631965684482013-06-27T07:28:00.000-07:002013-06-27T07:28:43.487-07:00Strategos - Rise of the Golden Heart by Gordon Doherty<div>
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After leaving Apion in a very, very dark place at the end of <b>Strategos:
Born in the Borderlands</b>, I often wondered not where I would take him next, but
where I would find him when I returned to the story to write this second volume.
The cliff-hanger ending to the first volume was a tempting place to pick up
again, but I quickly realised that Apion's story demanded something
different.</div>
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Indeed, having read David Gemmell's classic 'Midnight Falcon', I marvelled
at how the author had effortlessly stepped several years ahead from where the
previous volume, 'Sword in the Storm', left off. Much had happened in the
intervening years. Richly painted and seemingly iron-willed characters had been
demoted to mere background figures. The world had changed. But had the author
made that choice, or had Connovar and Bane chosen for him?</div>
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I knew that Apion had to be closer to the tumultuous event around which the
trilogy pivots: Manzikert. When, on the first day of my research into this
period, I saw the announcement that Michael Attaleiates' History - an eyewitness
account of Manzikert and the campaigns of the preceding years - had been
translated into English, I sensed the hand of fate on my shoulder. I devoured
Attaleiates' History in days, reading of the rise of an emperor who many thought
could restore Byzantium to greatness, and of his perilous campaigns into Seljuk
Syria. So it was, then, that Apion's destiny was to become entwined in this
brutal and treacherous period . . . "</div>
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<b>More about the book:</b> <a href="http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/writeblog/strategosriseofthegoldenheart" target="_blank">http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/writeblog/strategosriseofthegoldenheart</a></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Strategos-Rise-Golden-Heart-ebook/dp/B00DCN4PTO">Buy the book</a></b></div>
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Future Fans of Gordon's books, or those interested in the history of the Britons, the Rigante, The Macedonians or the Trojans might also be interested in these posts on this blog: </div>
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<a href="http://royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/legionary-by-gordon-doherty.html">Legionary</a> and <a href="http://royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/strategos-by-gordon-doherty.html">Strategos: Viper of the North</a></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-36727602288963451892013-05-19T06:23:00.000-07:002013-05-19T06:23:10.627-07:00The Quaker Trilogy by Ann Turnbull<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Shame-Fear-Ann-Turnbull/dp/1406336807"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-njLUKnTkAr0/UZjPkLCGquI/AAAAAAAAB4k/qXjk_kAj41s/s200/no+shame,+no+fear+smallest.JPG" width="128" /></a><span id="goog_1782493934"></span><span id="goog_1782493935"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0MXALwzHls/UZjPcHJAK0I/AAAAAAAAB4c/qgOQF63G2b8/s1600/forged+in+the+fire+smallest.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z0MXALwzHls/UZjPcHJAK0I/AAAAAAAAB4c/qgOQF63G2b8/s200/forged+in+the+fire+smallest.JPG" width="128" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeking-Eden-Quaker-Trilogy-3/dp/1406325422"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJXBlJ7naX0/UZjPYRjxbzI/AAAAAAAAB4U/Gc70fzTBT2Q/s200/seeking+eden+smallest.JPG" width="128" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />Some stories take a long time to grow. For a few years in the 1980s I attended Quaker meetings, and it was from the books in the local meeting’s library that I first learned about the origins of the Quakers in the 17th century. Those early Quakers insisted that people had no need of “hireling priests”, and their meetings were held in silence which could be broken by anyone, male or female, who felt moved to speak. They refused to pay church tithes, used the informal “thee” and “thou” to everyone, and would not doff their hats, even to those in authority. They were considered such a threat to church and state that they were subjected to relentless persecution. I was amazed to learn of their courage and the turmoil created by their radical beliefs. <br /><b><br />No Shame, No Fear</b> grew out of this reading and my personal involvement with Quakers, but it was nearly twenty years before I began writing the book. Until then, I had always written for children, but this was to be a young adult novel - a love story. Fifteen-year-old Susanna, the eldest child of a Quaker weaver in rural Shropshire, goes to live and work in town. There she meets Will, the son of a wealthy wool merchant – a scholarly, thoughtful youth, brought up an Anglican but drawn to the Quakers. As the repression of Quaker meetings grows worse, Susanna and Will struggle to uphold their beliefs and stay together. <br /><br />I started writing without knowing exactly how the story would unfold, or what decisions Will and Susanna would make. When I reached the end I knew I had to write a sequel. <br /><br /><b>Forged in the Fire</b> starts with Will and Susanna’s attempts to reunite and marry, and continues with the horrors of the plague and Newgate prison, and then the Great Fire of London and its aftermath. No Shame, No Fear had been a difficult book to write as I struggled to find my characters and story. Forged in the Fire was easier. I knew what I had to do; I knew and loved my characters; and I had the bonus of great and terrifying events for them to live through. It was a wonderfully exciting book to write. <br /><br /><b>Seeking Eden</b> was written much later. A third book – in which Will and Susanna and their children would emigrate to Philadelphia – had always nudged at me, wanting to be written. By the 1680s the suffering of Quakers had increased. William Penn, a wealthy and inspirational Quaker, acquired a large tract of land in America and founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment”, based on Quaker philosophy. This seemed a likely time for Will and Susanna to go. And yet I hesitated. These two dearly loved characters would now be in the background; Josiah, their son, would be the main character. And I was not familiar with America and its colonial history. Could I pull it off? <br /><br />But the idea would not go away, and at last I gave in and began to read more on the subject. I discovered that there were already Quakers living in the American colonies – quite large numbers of them in Maryland and Barbados. It was a time when the slave trade with Africa was growing fast – and I was astonished to discover that many Quakers kept slaves. I knew then that I had found my story. Seeking Eden takes Josiah from London to an apprenticeship with a merchant in the New World – and face to face with the evil of slavery. <br /><br />All three books can be read as stand-alone novels, and adults enjoy them as much as teenagers. New paperback editions were published in 2012, and e-book editions will be coming out this summer.</span><div>
<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <br />"I felt that I had entered the Garden of Eden and found the serpent coiled at its heart." </span></div>
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<span style="color: #134f5c; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />For up-to-date news on my books visit <br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ann-Turnbull/253624231370262">www.facebook.com/pages/Ann-Turnbull/253624231370262</a> <br /> <br />or my website: <a href="http://www.annturnbull.com/">www.annturnbull.com</a></span></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-29763384277249992482013-04-17T08:47:00.000-07:002013-04-17T08:47:52.721-07:00The First Blast of the Trumpet by Marie Macpherson<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Blast-Trumpet-Knox-Trilogy/dp/1908483210/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352223873&sr=1-1"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GTUup5XmGqE/UW7CTajXPoI/AAAAAAAAB1k/3vhhwSJPVVk/s320/TFBT+Cover+JPEG.JPG" width="297" /></a><span id="goog_273134909"></span><span id="goog_273134910"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When
people look incredulous and ask, ‘What on earth possessed you to write about
John Knox?’ I usually answer, ‘He did.’ For the founding father of the Scottish
Reformation is not the most obvious choice for a hero, nor was he foremost in
my mind when I started writing my novel. For me, growing up in Scotland Knox
was a pulpit-thumping tyrant, a cartoon Calvinist who hated women and banned
not only Christmas but playing football on Sundays. Besides, the tragic,
romantic figure of Mary Queen of Scots had always held far more fascination for
me than the dour Scottish reformer. But it was a series of coincidences that
led to the ghost of Knox hijacking my original project.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’d
been doing some research into the Treaty of Haddington, signed in 1548
betrothing Mary to the dauphin of France, when I came across a surprising
story. In the local archives I read an article about Elisabeth Hepburn,
prioress of St Mary’s Abbey at the time of the treaty who had been forced into
becoming a nun to protect the Hepburn family interests at this wealthy convent.
Clearly she did not buckle down to a life of quiet contemplation for she was
later accused of a certain misdemeanour. This made me eager to find out more
about this feisty, free-spirited woman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It
just so happened that I had studied 16<sup>th</sup> century Scottish literature
at university and was blown away by the works of these early writers,
especially the playwright David Lindsay who wrote a scathing attack on the
Roman Catholic Church, <i>A Satire of the
Three Estates</i>. In his play he denounces a prioress for her immoral
behaviour and I wondered if by any chance Elisabeth had inspired this character
who cursed her friends for ‘compelling her to be a nun and would not let her
marry’? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At
the time Lindsay had been exiled to Garleton Castle just a few miles away from
Haddington and it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that they had met.
In fact, the novel, originally entitled <i>The
Abbess of Unreason,</i> was going to focus on the intriguing relationship
between these two characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
was then thrilled to find that Lindsay had urged Knox to preach his first
sermon – to sound his first blast of the trumpet – against the Church of Rome
at St Andrews shortly before he was arrested and sent to the galleys. Did
Lindsay have more influence on Knox than many historians give him credit for? The
radical ideas expressed in his play must have affected Knox. Perhaps he learned
his preaching skills from the playwright and director, Lindsay. That, to me,
suggested a close relationship and I was curious to know how and when it began.<span class="msoIns"><ins datetime="2012-02-07T11:39"><o:p></o:p></ins></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Knox
himself was notoriously tight-lipped about the first thirty years of his life.
As far as he was concerned, he was born again when the Reformist preacher,
George Wishart, pulled him from the ‘puddle of papistry’. What is known about
his early life is that this poor orphan lad, born in Haddington in 1513 or
1514, was educated at the local grammar school and St Andrews University and
that puzzled me. How could a man of base estate and condition’ have afforded an
expensive education? Also unexplained was his relationship with the powerful
Hepburn family, the earls of Bothwell. Unearthing these bare <a href="" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="" name="OLE_LINK1">bones inspired me to
flesh out a story with a dark secret at its centre. </a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It
just so happens that in 2013 (or 2014 as some maintain) Knox will celebrate his
500<sup>th</sup> birthday and perhaps Knox thought it merited some kind of
fanfare. He was certainly instrumental in changing the title which I borrowed
from his polemical pamphlet <i>The First
Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. </i>But unlike
his misogynistic rant against female monarchs, my <i>First Blast</i>, the first of a trilogy of novels, does not rail
against women but is an attempt to unveil the man behind the myth.</span><a href="" name="_GoBack"></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.thehwa.co.uk/author/marie-macpherson">More about Marie</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.knoxrobinsonpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=117">More information</a> about the book</span></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-26849825313295232672013-04-03T00:42:00.000-07:002013-04-03T00:42:29.303-07:00Inceptio by Alison Morton<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w8oIVUrZ96A/UVvcidZSzEI/AAAAAAAABy4/xB-LfnbLMow/s1600/INCEPTIO_front+cover_300dpi_sm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w8oIVUrZ96A/UVvcidZSzEI/AAAAAAAABy4/xB-LfnbLMow/s320/INCEPTIO_front+cover_300dpi_sm.JPG" width="207" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The world of INCEPTIO glimmered into life several
decades ago. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My father, a numismatist, had introduced me
to history, especially the Roman world. So much so, that it seemed perfectly
normal to clamber over Roman aqueducts, walk on mosaic pavements, follow the
German <i>limes</i>, pretend I was a Roman playactor
in classic theatres all over Europe from Spain to then Yugoslavia, from
Hadrian’s Wall to Pompeii. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We were in north-east Spain one holiday. I was
eleven and fascinated by the mosaics in the Roman part of Ampurias (a huge
Graeco-Roman site). There were so many of them. I wanted to know who had made them, whose
houses they were in, who had walked on them.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After my father had told me about traders,
senators, power and families, I tilted my head to one side and asked him, “What
would it be like if Roman women were in charge, instead of the men?” Maybe it
was the fierce sun boiling my brain, maybe early feminism surfacing or maybe it
was just a precocious kid asking a smartarse question. But clever man and
senior ‘Roman nut’, my father replied, “What do <i>you</i> think it would be like?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Real life intervened (school, university,
career, military, marriage, parenthood, business ownership, move to France),
but the idea bubbled away in my mind and the INCEPTIO story slowly took shape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although
I specialised in languages, I was never free of the tug of history. As well as
reading academic books and watching series of documentaries, I grabbed every
historical fiction book that came my way from Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of
the Ninth via Jean Plaidy and Phillipa Gregory to C J Sansom’s Heartstone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My
mind was morphing the setting of ancient Rome into a new type of Rome, a state
that survived the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire into the 21<sup>st</sup>
century, but retained its Roman identity. And one where the social structure
changed; women were going to be leading society. In my daydream haze, my
heroine, Carina, was having all kinds of adventures, saving the world as well
as herself. Of course, she’d be high-spirited, not stupid, but a bit rash and
she’d make mistakes. Some of her conflicts would be personal and romantic - of
course, there would be hero(es) - some
against the establishment of which she was a part. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
I became an adult, I added in a lover for her, a blood–and-bone Roman; damaged,
thus self-protective, even arrogant. And Carina would have been brought up
elsewhere, just to introduce more conflict. A pleasant fantasy, she and Roma
Nova were at this time firmly caged in my head while real life clunked along.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But one day, about three years ago, they flew out. What
had opened the door?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every Wednesday, I would go to the
multiplex cinema with my husband on a 2-for-1 offer from our then mobile phone
provider with a warm feeling that we were getting something back from the
fortune they were making from our monthly contract. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> None
of the films looked anything special, but we eventually chose one. Thirty
minutes into the film, we agreed it was really, really bad. The cinematography
was good, but the plot dire and narration jerky.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> ‘I could do better than that,’ I whispered in
the darkened cinema. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> ‘So why don’t you?’ came my husband’s reply. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> Ninety days later, I’d written 96,000 words,
the first draft of INCEPTIO. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;">Alison Morton<br />
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.alison-morton.com/"><span lang="FR">www.alison-morton.com</span></a></span><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">@alison_morton<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor"><span lang="FR">www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor</span></a></span><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Book trailer: <a href="http://youtu.be/NJXrIn7QkiM">http://youtu.be/NJXrIn7QkiM</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buying links: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inceptio-Roma-Nova-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624">Amazon UK:</a><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/INCEPTIO-Roma-Nova-ebook/dp/B00BMU5OW6">Amazon US:</a> </span></span></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-15337063918199431042013-03-28T00:56:00.001-07:002013-03-28T07:42:20.202-07:00A Murder at Rosamund's Gate by Susanna Calkins<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VRwR5n1VjD4/UVP12oRk2yI/AAAAAAAAByo/D2BiwH71SuI/s1600/Murder+at++Rosamund%C2%B9s+Gate+revised+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VRwR5n1VjD4/UVP12oRk2yI/AAAAAAAAByo/D2BiwH71SuI/s320/Murder+at++Rosamund%C2%B9s+Gate+revised+2.JPG" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The crime at the heart of <i>A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate </i>came to me
when I was a graduate student in history.
I'd been pouring through ballads and broadsides—the penny press that
served as both a source of exaggerated news and a cheap entertainment in seventeenth-century
England—and I was struck by the same story that appeared again and again. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These “true accounts” would
speak of a woman who’d been found stabbed in a secluded glen or a deserted
field. In her pocket, the investigating authorities often found a letter,
purportedly from the killer. In this letter, he would usually tell his victim
to meet him at ‘such-and-such deserted location.’ Then he would sign the letter, with either
his given name or his initials. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
case seemed open and shut. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet, every time I read one of
these accounts, I had to wonder: Why
didn’t the killer search his victim for incriminating evidence before he fled
the scene? Didn’t it ever occur to him that she might bring the letter—you know,
the one with his initials—with her to their rendezvous? I also would wonder:
Why did the victims agree to meet these killers? Or perhaps, most simply of
all, was some other chap being framed for the crime?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No matter what, the story was
not just sad, but incomplete.<br />
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In some ways, <i>A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate</i>
became the answer to the questions that never got asked--Who was this woman? Why
had she agreed to meet her killer? Did she know him, or had she been tricked?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And perhaps most important of
all—Would she get the justice she deserved?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I decided to focus my story
around </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Lucy Campion, a
seventeenth-century English chambermaid serving in the household of the local
magistrate. Lucy’s life is an endless
repetition of polishing pewter, emptying chamber pots, and dealing with other
household chores until a fellow servant is ruthlessly killed, and someone she
loves is wrongly arrested for the crime. In a time where the accused are
presumed guilty until proven innocent, lawyers aren’t permitted to defend their
clients, and—if the plague doesn't kill them first—public executions draw a
large crowd of spectators, Lucy knows she may never see her brother alive
again. Unless, that is, she can identify the true murderer…before that murderer
turns on her. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Order<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Rosamunds-Gate-Campion-Mysteries/dp/1250007909"> the book</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.susannacalkins.com/">www.susannacalkins.com</a></span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US"><a href="mailto:s.calkins@nu.gmail"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">s.calkins@nu.gmail</span></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">tweet @scalkins3</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-26388802543972678822013-02-28T10:21:00.000-08:002013-03-03T01:49:07.978-08:00The Owl of the Durotriges by Yassmin Sanders<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Owl-Durotriges-Yassmin-Sanders/dp/1781762813/"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nVvn8ZXgiq4/USZk73XSBVI/AAAAAAAABwI/NhSEAuumhn0/s320/owl-durotriges-web-cover.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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I started writing The Owl of the Durotriges after completing a degree in
Archaeology and Classical History at Canterbury in 2008. I undertook the
part-time degree for curiosity and interest rather than a career choice. My
specialist area was deposition in boundaries but the more I read about the late
Iron Age, the more fascinated I became with the era in general. Archaeology
tells us about social history rather than the history of kings and queens and I
was able to imagine how the people lived at that time. At the end of the degree
I realised that I would lose this knowledge unless I put it to good use and kept
up the reasearch and so I began writing.</div>
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I was fascinated by the fact that there was a roaring trade between
Hengistbury Head and Brittany well before the Romans arrived and I wanted to
challenge the classically-biased belief that we were a bunch of barbarians
before Caeser or Claudius. I set the main action in Hengistbury Head and as
soon as I began to write, the characters seemed to announce themselves on the
page. Chela, our heroine, is a healer. I once trained as an aromatherapist and
had to learn all about the medicinal uses of plants and herbs - this seemed an
opportunity to make use of this knowledge too. I also included druids but
I wanted them to be politically active rather than simply a benign priesthood.
The story changed and had very many edits and re-edits until I was happy with
it. My main aim, however, was to tell a good story rather than use the book as
a platform to promote the Iron Age. I hope I have succeeded, but that, of
course, is up to the reader to say.</div>
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You can see more on my website: <a href="http://www.yassminsanders.com/" target="_blank">www.yassminsanders.com</a> </div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-62375715044406559622013-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:002013-02-25T10:13:00.447-08:00To the Fair Land by Lucienne Boyce<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/To-Fair-Land-Lucienne-Boyce/dp/1781320179"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_UsBYX95uiY/USZiwhHfDwI/AAAAAAAABwA/3LoBc0B17YI/s320/tfl+cover+jpg.JPG" width="218" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />I sometimes wonder how I managed to combine all the elements of To The Fair Land – Grub Street, Captain Cook’s voyages, murder, fantasy, elopement, the search for the Great Southern Continent... It’s always hard to trace the beginning of something but I would say that the initial spark that eventually brought together these apparently disconnected themes came from Frances Burney, who is one of my literary heroines. <br /><br />That initial glimmer was my fascination with the secrecy surrounding the publication of Frances Burney’s first novel, Evelina. The book was published anonymously to preserve the author’s modesty. Although there were many fine women novelists in the eighteenth century, attitudes towards them were often hostile and misogynistic. Women who wrote attracted criticism and notoriety which had more to do with their gender than their work, and no respectable woman would seek such attention. <br /><br />It has also been suggested that the reason for Frances’s secrecy was that the Burneys wished to avoid attracting undue attention to themselves because of certain shocking family secrets. Two of Frances’s step-sisters eloped, and her brother Charles was sent down from Cambridge University for theft. Later, scandal surrounded her elder brother James and half-sister, Sarah, who was also a novelist. I’m not convinced by this argument: these dreadful family secrets were no barrier to her father continuing to write and publish his work – with the unpaid help of Frances as his secretary. <br /><br />Be that as it may, it was the secrecy about the authorship of Evelina which intrigued me. I began to wonder what would happen if a book was published with more at stake than a reputation. I started to imagine the possibility of a publication that meant real danger to people connected with it. But what could be so important? Again, I found the clues in Frances Burney’s novels and diaries. Her brother James served in the Resolution on Captain Cook’s second voyage; Frances herself met the Tahitian Omai who was brought back to England by the explorers. <br /><br />Then there was the lure of the Great Southern Continent. I’ve always been fascinated by mythical lands – the island of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Richard Brome’s The Antipodes, Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s Herland, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, William Morris’s Wondrous Isles, C S Lewis’s Narnia, El Dorado, Camelot...all the dystopias and utopias and lands of fabulous wealth that mankind has dreamed of for centuries. (Now we put them on other planets!) <br /><br />Since the time of Pythagoras, people had believed in the existence of the Great Southern Continent – or Great South Land – which they thought lay in the southern hemisphere. Many navigators went in search of it: Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci and Magellan; Dampier and Wallis of England; Bougainville of France. In 1765 Admiral Byron thought he glimpsed this “continent of great extent never yet explored”. <br /><br />What could be more exciting? The quest for new lands – perilous voyages – scandalous secrets – it was all there! At stake are lives, fortunes, even the fate of a nation…so Ben Dearlove, the hero of To The Fair Land, faces violence, murder and imprisonment because of his obsession with a book about a voyage to the Great Southern Continent. The heroine, Sarah Edgcumbe, is a homeless wanderer who has to conceal the truth about her past. She’s also named, by the way, after Sarah Burney and like her namesake is a writer. <br /><br />The last great navigator to set sail in search of the Great Southern Continent was Captain James Cook. On both his first and second voyages he was instructed by the Admiralty to search for it, and it was he who demonstrated, once and for all, that it did not exist. But in 1772 his second voyage had only just begun and it was still possible to believe that the Continent existed. So it was at this point in history that I set the events at the heart of To The Fair Land. <br /><br />To The Fair Land is available in paperback and also as an ebook for Kindle and non Kindle users. <br /><br />Read an extract at <a href="http://www.lucienneboyce.com/fiction.html">http://www.lucienneboyce.com/fiction.html</a></span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-16369539072128845972013-02-21T10:00:00.001-08:002013-02-21T10:00:30.370-08:00The Wild Heart by Gina Rossi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Wild-Heart-Gina-Rossi/dp/1612171087"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QvypXKeObJ8/USZfiVJPCdI/AAAAAAAABv4/Jh9upXHe2dA/s320/TheWildHeart_w6774_680.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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Southern Africa encompasses a vast and beautiful series of interchanging landscapes, a wealth of culture and a million secrets. It is the cradle of civilization and a cultural melting pot. It's a darkly glamorous, wild, romantic world. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've always wanted to write an historical novel and have read, literally, hundreds. I adore the regency romances, the Edwardian historicals and the fabulous tales of royalty through the ages, but I wanted to do something different. I lived in South Africa for many years and understand (and have witnessed) some of the struggles of that continent. However, those valiant struggles aside, I wanted a feelgood story to come out of Africa. It's time for that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, from the golden age of Dutch and French influence on the 18th Century Cape of Good Hope, comes the story of Georgina Blake, a refined young woman from Wiltshire who commits a social and moral blunder and finds herself cast adrift, alone, in the savage African landscape.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /><br />Gina Rossi was born in South Africa. She grew up in Johannesburg and lived in Cape Town before moving to England to live near Oxford, in the Cotswolds. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now settled in the sunny south of France, Gina is able to write full time. Her debut historical romance 'The Wild Heart' was listed for the 2012 Joan Hessayon award. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) in the UK, and the Romance Writers Organization of South Africa (ROSA)</span><div>
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Follow Gina on twitter: @Ginagina7 </div>
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Pinterest <a href="http://pinterest.com/ginarossiwriter/#" target="_blank">http://pinterest.com/ginarossiwriter/#</a> </div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-91093725502114147162013-01-22T04:46:00.001-08:002013-01-22T04:46:02.912-08:00Coachman by Sue Millard<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7qPhaixBxrU/UP6ImrvtZLI/AAAAAAAABuQ/gjHG_NoFEEc/s1600/coachman.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7qPhaixBxrU/UP6ImrvtZLI/AAAAAAAABuQ/gjHG_NoFEEc/s320/coachman.JPG" width="217" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 18pt;">In 1994 a neighbour of ours asked me to
transcribe a letter written by her great-grandfather William James Chaplin. A
bookseller had bought it at auction and brought to show her. Neither of them
could read his writing. I could… and that long, rambling letter with its air of
‘one-too-many-ports-after-dinner’ gave me the idea for the novel.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">William Chaplin was a huge force in the
London coaching business in the 1820s and 30s, yet the few stories about him
that are recorded in books by his contemporaries all show him in an
affectionate light. He was largely responsible for the abolition of heavy
brutal driving whips in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>’s
coaching trade, and his vision was so clear that when the railways began to challenge
his trade he was immediately stepped back, sold all his coaches and rebuilt his
business on new lines. A thoroughly solid, sound, clever fellow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">When I realised how damn boring that story would
be – <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><i>Dallas</i></st1:city></st1:place> with only the nice bits on display
– I knew I had to invent someone humbler, so I could show what might have
happened to the drivers, stablemen and horses when railways took the heart out
of their daily life.</span><span lang="EN-US"> Many of the drivers I mention in <i>Coachman</i> were real people in the Golden
Age of Coaching, and some, such as Cross, wrote autobiographies during their
twilight years for the benefit of Coaching Revivalists in later Victorian
times. Their anecdotes were rich sources for this novel. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I thoroughly enjoyed the research that has
been necessary, from the theatre productions of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city> to the beginnings of the railways and
the changing business plans of the Royal Mail. The task was made much easier by
the digitizing of old and expensive books by the Internet Archive and Project
Gutenberg, while the British Postal Museum and Archive were helpful in
providing photocopies of such material as the instructions and route for the
last-ever Procession of Mail Coaches on 17<sup>th</sup> May 1838. The icing on
the cake was the drawing of the Procession by John Sturgess in my copy of <i>The Coaching Age</i> in 1885. It’s not a
truly contemporary image but it captures the flavour of the scene beautifully
and it made a perfect cover.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The setting
among horses and coaches was easy to write about because I have been a carriage
driver myself since 1985. Horses still work and misbehave in the same ways
today as they did then, so speeds and difficulties were not hard to imagine. To
get the full flavour of riding on a coach behind a four in hand I took part in
a coaching run between <st1:city w:st="on">Newcastle</st1:city> and <st1:place w:st="on">Carlisle</st1:place> in 2011, with the Bowman family from Penrith.
They are leading lights in the North West Driving Club and known
internationally in competitive driving, and I have shamelessly stolen one or
two of the comments that they have let slip over the years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have given
George Davenport some rather forward-looking attitudes, such as his reluctance
to be cruel to horses to get the work out of them that his timetable demanded.
Such kindness was probably not typical of most men of his time, but I needed it
to make him a warmer character, because his dedication to driving was obviously
going to be a rich source of conflict with the women in his life. </span><span lang="EN-US">I gave him the name of my own
great-grandfather, because he was a coachman in domestic service, though he
didn’t work a commercial route, and he lived 50 years after Chaplin’s time. Although
his wife, my great-grandmother, really was called Lucy Hennessy, she didn’t
live in <st1:place w:st="on">Carlisle</st1:place> and my relatives will no
doubt be relieved to hear that I have completely invented her unpleasant mother
and their unsavoury history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">As for the rest of the cast, I am grateful
to Jennie Hill for permission to write the novel and for giving me a copy of Chaplin’s
family tree. He had 16 children, of whom Sarah was the only one of his children
who died unmarried (<st1:place w:st="on">Rosa</st1:place> died aged 8 and
Horace died in infancy). Nothing else is known about Sarah, so I could safely
invent whatever reasons I liked to account for her spinster status. A former
coachman remarked that Chaplin’s business was founded on “</span><span lang="EN-US">systematic application ... in which the female members of the family
were called to assist,” so </span><span lang="EN-US">I decided to make her obsessed with business and power, determined not
to lose them by marriage and yet tormented by physical desires that – due to
the strict notions of propriety at that time – she had little hope of satisfying.
</span><span lang="EN-US">The temptation to move the newly-married George to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, to hold Lucy back
with illness and leave him within reach of such a woman as Sarah was quite
irresistible.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coachman-Sue-Millard/dp/0957361254/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357215230&sr=1-2">Buy the book</a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://suemillard.blogspot.co.uk/">Sue's website</a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://suemillard.blogspot.co.uk/">http://www.jackdawebooks.co.uk/</a></span></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-91319314271421341622013-01-05T07:19:00.000-08:002013-01-07T02:06:14.946-08:00Royalist Rebel by Anita Seymour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ruVnPOKEe4o/UORP_muf2LI/AAAAAAAABr8/YOvicnAt8zU/s1600/Royalist+Rebel+by+Anita+Seymour.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ruVnPOKEe4o/UORP_muf2LI/AAAAAAAABr8/YOvicnAt8zU/s320/Royalist+Rebel+by+Anita+Seymour.gif" width="206" /></a></div>
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During the early days of the English Civil Wars, Elizabeth Murray lived at Ham House on the River Thames near Richmond with her mother and three younger sisters while her father, William Murray, was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber at the exiled court of Charles I in Oxford. <br />
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In the winter of 1643 as the war edged closer, Catherine Murray took her daughters to Oxford, where they lived amongst impoverished and dispossessed Royalists gathered round King Charles, who plotted to regain London and his throne. <br />
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Reputed to be Oliver Cromwell’s mistress as well as a spy for the Royalist secret organisation The Sealed Knot, Elizabeth married twice and died in 1698 at 72 years old, alone, embittered and impoverished in her beloved Ham House. Vilified by society and abandoned by her children, the triumphs of her remarkable life largely forgotten. <br />
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If you visit Ham House, which has been restored to the way it looked during Elizabeth’s lifetime, this is the woman the guides talk about; an irascible, embittered widow stripped of her glory and reduced to genteel poverty in her beloved childhood home. They run ghost evenings at Ham, where tales of sightings of the old lady’s spirit that roams the mansion tapping the floors with her stick, her small dog at her side while the scent of attar of roses permeates her favourite rooms announcing her presence. <br />
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In the gallery is this portrait of Elizabeth, painted by Sir Peter Lely when she was eighteen. This was the young woman I wanted to discover and subsequently began writing about - the beautiful, intelligent and passionate young girl on the verge of womanhood who was dedicated to Ham House, the Royalist cause and the men in her life; her father William Murray, son of a minister who rose to become King Charles’ friend and confidant, Lionel Tollemache, her husband of twenty years who adored her, Oliver Cromwell who was fascinated by her, and John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, Charles II’s favourite on whom he heaped honours and riches, only to ostracise him after a bitter quarrel. <br />
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Royalist Rebel is the story of that girl. <br />
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Release date January 17 2013 <br />
<br />
Royalist Rebel Blog- <a href="http://www.royalistrebel.blogspot.com/">http://www.royalistrebel.blogspot.com </a><br />
Ham House Website <a href="http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ham-house/">http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ham-house/</a><br />
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Anita's Blog:<a href="http://thedisorganisedauthor.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; font-size: small; font-style: italic;" target="_blank">http://thedisorganisedauthor.blogspot.com</a></div>
Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-37396503884911326782013-01-02T07:07:00.001-08:002013-01-02T07:07:48.016-08:00Ripples in the Sand by Helen Hollick<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ripples-Sand-Witch-Voyages-ebook/dp/B00ANV99JY/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1357139038&sr=1-10"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-joDsUqBApek/UORLMQvPoGI/AAAAAAAABrs/GDTnOqr6ZZg/s320/Hollick.JPG" width="212" /></a></div>
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<br />Ripples In The Sand is the fourth voyage in my Sea Witch historical adventure series and I wanted to write something a little different from the previous three – albeit keeping the same flavour of swashbuckling pirate-based action. <br /><br />I also wanted to bring in some of Tiola’s past; as she is now Jesamiah’s wife, I think she deserves to come to the fore a little. We know a lot about Jesamiah Acorne from voyages one, two, and three, but not why he and she are “soul mates” – nor why Tethys, Goddess of the Sea wants Jesamiah so desperately for her own. <br /><br />I also wanted to bring the characters to England – for no other reason than, for me, it is easier to research Devon than it is the Caribbean! <br /><br />Without giving any spoilers, I had the idea of Tiola being able to look back into the past some while ago, and this gave me the opportunity to research some history of Appledore, Bideford and Barnstaple – blending small scenes of the past into the “present” (well, 1719!) history. <br /><br />I have even managed to bring into this story a snippet from my novel about King Harold II of England. (Harold the King – UK title; I am the Chosen King – US title) He landed in Devon circa 1053, returning from a year of exile after a squabble between his father and King Edward the Confessor. It was great fun to include one of my favourite historical fiction characters in this story! <br /><br /> As usual Captain Acorne finds himself in trouble, even though he is trying to become a respectable merchant trader. But will that pirate rogue ever become respectable and live without trouble following behind like a ship’s wake?<br /><a href="http://www.helenhollick.net/">www.helenhollick.net</a><br />
<a href="http://www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk/" target="_blank">www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk</a>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-42113888013295369392012-12-30T04:34:00.000-08:002012-12-30T04:34:25.389-08:00The White Hawk by David Pilling<br />
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<i><span lang="EN-US">A Bolton, a <st1:place w:st="on">Bolton</st1:place>! The White Hawk!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #181818;">"A Bolton, a <st1:place w:st="on">Bolton</st1:place>!
The White Hawk! God for Lancaster and Saint George!"</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #181818;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #181818;"><br />
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<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span class="apple-style-span">England</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="apple-style-span">, 1459: the kingdom stands divided and on the brink of
civil war. The factions of Lancaster and York vie for control of the King,
while their armies stand poised, ready to tear each other to pieces.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
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<span class="apple-style-span">The White Hawk follows the fortunes of a family of
Lancastrian loyalists, the Boltons, as they attempt to survive and prosper in
this world of brutal warfare and shifting alliances. Surrounded by enemies,
their loyalties will be tested to the limit in a series of bloody battles and
savage twists of fate. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This period, with its murderous
dynastic feuding between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster, is perhaps the
most fascinating of the entire medieval period in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Having lost the Hundred
Years War, the English nobility turned on each other in a bitter struggle for
the crown, resulting in a spate of beheadings, battles, murders and
Gangland-style politics that lasted some thirty years.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Apart from the savage doings of
aristocrats, the wars affected people on the lower rungs of society. One minor
gentry family in particular, the Pastons of Norfolk, suffered greatly in their
attempts to survive and thrive in the feral environment of the late 15th
century. They left an invaluable chronicle in their archive of family
correspondence, the famous Paston Letters.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The letters provide us with a
snapshot of the trials endured by middle-ranking families like the Pastons, and
of the measures they took to defend their property from greedy neighbours. One
such extract is a frantic plea from the matriarch of the clan, Margaret Paston,
begging her son John to return from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>:</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">"I greet you well, letting
you know that your brother and his fellowship stand in great jeopardy at
Caister... Daubney and Berney are dead and others badly hurt, and gunpowder and
arrows are lacking. The place is badly broken down by the guns of the other
party, so that unless they have hasty help, they are likely to lose both their lives
and the place, which will be the greatest rebuke to you that ever came to any
gentleman. For every man in this country marvels greatly that you suffer them
to be for so long in great jeopardy without help or other remedy..."</span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The Paston Letters, together with
my general fascination for the era, were the inspiration for The White Hawk.
Planned as a series of three novels, TWH will follow the fortunes of a
fictional Staffordshire family, the Boltons, from the beginning to the very end
of The Wars of the Roses. Unquenchably loyal to the House of Lancaster, their
loyalty will have dire consequences for them as law and order breaks down and
the kingdom slides into civil war. The ‘white hawk’ of the title is the sigil
of the Boltons, and will fly over many a blood-stained battlefield.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/White-Hawk-Part-One-Revenge/dp/1480268127/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353933702&sr=1-1&keywords=The+White+Hawk+pilling">The
White Hawk - paperback version</a></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Hawk-ebook/dp/B00ACO75VG/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353933702&sr=1-2&keywords=The+White+Hawk+pilling">Kindle
version</a></span></div>
<a href="http://www.boltonandpilling.com/research">http://www.boltonandpilling.com/research</a>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-69483239718684221132012-12-20T02:21:00.001-08:002012-12-20T02:21:22.513-08:00Oleanna by Julie K. Rose<br />
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<br /><br />The immigrant story is a powerful one in the American psyche. We have so many compelling tales about the lives immigrants led once they came to this strange new land. But what about the families they left behind? <br /><br />My great-grandfather John Myklebust was a successful homesteader in North Dakota in the early 1900s, but he left something behind: his two spinster sisters stayed on the farm in Jølster, Sogn, Norway. Their names were Elisabeth and Oleanna.<br /><br />Oleanna is set during the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905, and it's an imagining of Elisabeth and Oleanna's lives. Who were these women? What were their stories? Why were Oleanna and Elisabeth still living together, alone on the farm, until their deaths (94 and 92, respectively)? Why did they never leave Norway? Why did John decide to leave? What were their lives like? What was it like to be left behind? <br /><br />And though this is a work of fiction, the book is firmly rooted in the history of the time. What was it like to live during a time of such inexorable change—the coming of industrialization and modernity to the rural areas of the country? What was it like to live during a time when Norway was finally becoming an independent country after hundreds and hundreds of years? <br /><br />I have always been fascinated by the lives of regular people. I do love a good story about an historical figure, but I have always been drawn to the history of daily life. What did the regular folk drink, think, laugh at, wear, worry about? What can we learn about history through the small details? What can we learn about ourselves? <br /><br />As a matter of fact, I learned a lot about myself as I wrote this book. The idea for the story came to me very suddenly, in November 2006, with the image of Oleanna on the top of a mountain in Norway, her long blond hair being whipped by the wind. I'd never seen a photo her (except in advanced age) so this was quite a surprise. But she appeared, right when I needed her, and I couldn't turn my back on her. <br /><br />The writing process was difficult, from an emotional standpoint; I started writing Oleanna six months after my mother died. The themes and characters were very close to the bone, and I needed to take breaks to get my brain recalibrated and come back with fresh eyes. In fact, I wrote (and edited, and rewrote) another novel, and made a start on two others, while I was writing Oleanna. <br /><br />But in the end, I always came back to her, fascinated by her story and her struggle. Though the book was inspired by my family, Oleanna became her own character, and accompanying her on her journey through the fascinating changes in early 20th century Norway was both a thrilling challenge and a true honor. <br /><br /><div>
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Julie's website <a href="http://www.juliekrose.com/" target="_blank">http://www.juliekrose.com</a></div>
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<i>Oleanna: A Novel of Norway in 1905</i></div>
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<a href="http://oleannanovel.com/" target="_blank">http://oleannanovel.com</a></div>
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<i>Oleanna</i> can be purchased online through any retailer (B&N,
Amazon worldwide, iBookstore worldwide, Powells, <a href="http://indiebound.org/" target="_blank">Indiebound.org</a>, and more) in both paperback and ebook formats.
The U.S. amazon link is: <a href="http://amzn.to/VlYhQb" target="_blank">http://amzn.to/VlYhQb</a> .</div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-55349325622526295932012-12-19T04:26:00.000-08:002012-12-19T04:26:44.446-08:00Readers choices - favourite royalty-free historicals<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yNVqAbLI0sc/TiTkNYcsnEI/AAAAAAAAEYk/pKvzKiCBxfA/s1600/Outlander.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yNVqAbLI0sc/TiTkNYcsnEI/AAAAAAAAEYk/pKvzKiCBxfA/s320/Outlander.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>
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Congratulations to Danielle!<br />
the winner of The Gilded Lily in the blog hop draw!<br />
During the recent giveaway and blog hop I asked people for their favourite historicals about ordinary people.<br />
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By far the most popular book without Kings and Queens was <span style="color: #351c75;">Diana Gabaldon's Outlander Series.</span><br />
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Mentioned more than once:<br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton</span><br />
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Other historical fiction titles that were mentioned are listed below:<br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQllIzBEnkb1l3O06gpPgbyH1WvmP_bkS0XWVNiNI-2m-1CLon_cw" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQllIzBEnkb1l3O06gpPgbyH1WvmP_bkS0XWVNiNI-2m-1CLon_cw" /></a>Into The Wilderness - Sara Donati<br />
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Fallen Angels -Tracy Chevalier<br />
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Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset <br />
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Blood Lance - Jeri Westerson<br />
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The President's Lady - Irving Stone<br />
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See<br />
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The Sisters Brothers - Patrick deWitt<br />
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The Tea Rose trilogy- Jennifer Donnelly<br />
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In the Company of the Courtesan - Sarah Dunant<br />
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The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey<br />
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The Promise - Kate Worth<br />
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Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell<br />
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Blackberry Winter -Sarah Jio<br />
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Thank you so much all of you who left comments, they were much appreciated.<br />
It is a wonderful list and there are several on there I haven't read yet so they will definitely be going onto my TBR pile!<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">.</span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-15642898670586875652012-12-10T02:10:00.002-08:002012-12-10T04:06:23.099-08:00Royalty Free Fiction - hopping through history<div>
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<img alt="Sign up for the 1st Annual Historical Holiday Blog Hop!" src="http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq159/abruno77/BlogHopBannerFINAL-1.jpg" /><br />
<a href="http://www.passagestothepast.com/2012/12/1st-annual-historical-holiday-blog-hop.html">http://www.passagestothepast.com/2012/12/1st-annual-historical-holiday-blog-hop.html</a><br />
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Royalty Free Fiction (Historical Fiction with no Kings and Queens) is proud to be part of the Historical Holiday Blog Hop organised by Amy at Passages to the Past.</div>
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I'd love to know a favourite historical novel you have read which features ordinary people and no royalty. <b>Comment here to win a signed copy of The Gilded Lily - open worldwide.</b><br />
<b>One extra entry if you follow this blog, another extra entry if you tweet about Royalty Free Fiction - the past is full of ordinary people with extraordinary lives.</b></div>
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Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8233482695263937991.post-52702515209234067632012-12-06T08:39:00.000-08:002012-12-06T08:39:00.639-08:00At Drake's Command - David Wesley Hill<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drakes-Command-adventures-Peregrine-circumnavigation/dp/0983611726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352130935&sr=8-1&keywords=%22at+drake%27s+command%2"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zy_0IP6rVUI/ULuC62kLZmI/AAAAAAAABnk/NbqJNwN3eGA/s320/Drake.JPG" width="208" /></a></div>
<br />In 1999 I was one of the winners of the Writers of
the Future Contest. We were invited to Los Angeles for a week-long writing
workshop conducted by Algis Budrys and Dave Wolverton.. One morning our group
was let loose in the aisles of the LA Library to browse the shelves in search of
inspiration. I was mildly interested in pirates and began reading a facsimile
edition of The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake.<br /><br />This was not
written by Drake himself but published by a nephew thirty years after Drake's
death in an effort to keep alive Drake's reputation. While thumbing through the
book, I came across an interesting passage. On an island off the coast of
Patagonia, Drake charged one of his crew with treason and mutiny. Forty men were
chosen as jurors and a trial was held. The accused, Thomas Doughty, was found
guilty. Drake gave Doughty three options:<br /><br />1. To be returned to England to
face punishment<br />2. To be left behind in South America<br />3. To be
executed<br /><br />Given these choices, Doughty replied: "Please, do not return me
to England since I am a gentleman and do not want to be shamed before my queen.
Do not maroon me here, either, since I am a good Christian and I do not want to
lose my faith among the heathen. No, general, I ask you to exercise the third
option."<br /><br />Drake obliged and cut off Doughty's head. Then he held it up by
the hair and said, "Lo, here be the end of traitors."<br /><br />Upon reading this,
I said to myself, "This is utter mendacity." So I embarked on a course of
research to uncover the real story of what had happened on that bleak island
(Drake called it the "Island of Truth and Justice" but the crew had another name
for it: "The Island of Blood"). <br /><br />During the next four years I studied all
of the major accounts of Drake's life and the circumnavigation, starting with
The World Encompassed and including Corbett's Drake and the Tudor Navy and
Wagner's Voyage Around the World. An 8-volume edition of Hakluyt's The Principal
Navigations was an invaluable resource, too, since it contained much about
Drake. At one point I ordered facsimiles of source material from the British
Library so that I could examine the original text. Google Earth has also been
an amazing tool, allowing me to retrace Drake's route almost day by
day.<br /><br />Eventually, I succeeded—at least, to my own satisfaction—in
understanding what had actually transpired on that awful day in 1578. My first
inclination was to write a non-fiction book about the Doughty affair. I am,
however, a fiction writer, so I decided to tell the tale in novel form while
paying meticulous respect for historical accuracy. <br /><br /><span class="HOEnZb">Cover Art: "The Golden Hinde off New Albion" by Simon Kozhin <br />Contact: <a href="mailto:info@temurlonepress.com" target="_blank">info@temurlonepress.com</a> </span><br />
<span class="HOEnZb"><a href="http://www.temurlonepress.com/" target="_blank">http://www.temurlonepress.com</a> </span>Deborah Swifthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10594174632573628818noreply@blogger.com2