It is always great to host fellow historical fiction authors on the blog, but I'm doubly excited to introduce you to today's #HistFicThursdays writer, Catherine Hughes . Catherine has always been very supportive of my writing, and it's a pleasure to be able to host her new book, Therein Lies the Pearl , on the blog as part of The Coffee Pot Book Club 's book tour. Read on to enjoy an excerpt from this gripping book! First of all, let's meet the book... Normandy, 1064 Celia Campion, a girl of humble background, finds herself caught in a web of intrigue when Duke William commands her to work as his spy, holding her younger sister hostage. Her mission: to sail across the sea to Wilton Abbey and convince Margaret, daughter of Edward the Exile, to take final vows rather than form a marriage alliance with the newly crowned king to the North, Malcolm III of Scotland. Preventing a union between the Saxons and Scots is critical to the success of the Duke’s plan to t...
Thank you Judith Crow for writing this book review. Mysteries and Misadventure - Tales from the Highlands by Aaron Mullins I do like short stories. There’s just something about having the option to dive into a book for five minutes and emerge having completed an entire story. Aaron Mullins' Mysteries and Misadventures is a collection of short stories which are inspired by the area we live in. It always helps when you can put yourself in the place where the stories are set but, never fear, Aaron has a genuine gift for descriptive writing which allows people from any place to put themselves in the settings he skilfully creates. I regularly do the “first read” of the Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story competition, meaning that I can be reading over a hundred supernatural stories in a very short space of time. That makes me choosy and means I come at any such stories with a very critical eye. Mysteries and Misadventures does stand up well in this light. Again, that descriptive writing is wh...