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Showing posts from January, 2023

#HistFicThursdays - Inspirational Series: Alexander the Great

I honestly can’t remember what inspired me to write about Alexander the Great. I think it was probably the Horrible Histories song , but I could be wrong about that. I suddenly just wanted to know everything there was to know about him, and to put it into story form. I actually started the story before I knew much about him and his campaigns at all so, still in its first draft condition, the opening chapter of the book has some rather hilarious mistakes and inferences. By the second chapter, I had eased into the story a little more and, by the fourth chapter, the research was there to support it too. This story was unique among my historical fantasy because of the sheer quantity of research which I did for it. I devoured anything and everything I could find about Alexander the Great. There was a wonderful blog called The Second Achilles, and I spent hours poring over archived posts, reading as much as I could about different theories and stories about the great conqueror. The blog disa...
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#TheRabbitHoleReadingChallenge Book Review: The Woman in Silk

     Review I feel  slightly bad writing this review because I googled the author, Reg Gadney, and discovered that he died in 2018. He seems to have been a very interesting person, who created many great things throughout a very creative and fruitful lifetime. Unfortunately, this book isn't one of those things.     There are two things I really loved about it. The first is the blurb, which is shared at the end of this review. This is a book which sounds perfect for me, and I'm still looking forward to reading the story that I believed it would be. The second is the personal inscription which is in my copy. You see, someone who knows me really well also read the blurb and immediately thought of me! What could possibly go wrong?! It turns out that a book can look perfect for someone but still not be a good fit. But, honestly, this is just not a good book. There are one or two characters who threaten to be realistic but every single one of them maintains an ai...
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Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín by Oisín Breen - A @WeeklyScribe Guest Interview

The Curator of our @WeeklyScribe account this week has been the fabulous Oisín Breen , who is celebrating the release of his newest book of poetry,  Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín and Other Poems . He gave us this fantastic interview about his new book; his relationship with poetry; and words of wisdom for poets at the start of their journey. Read on, poetry-lovers... Please introduce yourself and your book. Thank you. Well, in purely declarative terms, I’m an Irishman, the sound, meaning, history and myth of my country is in the bones, so when it comes to the poetic, I am precisely the opposite of what in my own brain I call the ‘English’ style, though to be fair it stretches over the oceans, too, namely a cool, crisp, reserved, dry, acerbic, minimalist approach to writing. I’m no minimalist whatsoever. Lord, I don’t even believe in it. A poem or a story without a journey, without arc (I mean if you think of the theorist Todorov and minimal narratives, how can you not think of w...
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#HistFicThursdays - Ensign John Mackay (Caledon) - Fifteen Minutes of Fame

 I'm running behind schedule today! But here is the #HistFicThursdays blog... This year, I will be sharing a post every month which looks at a real person who appears in one of my books or who was an inspiration for it. January's person is John Mackay . Here's who he was: John Mackay was an Ensign in the small militia which was based in the Northern Highlands during the 1745 Jacobite Rising. This was a little bit akin to being a freelance worker today. Because he was in the militia rather than the army, there is very little documentation to be found of him. The Book of Mackay  has his deeds at Littleferry listed, and then he promptly disappears! Events at Littleferry were swift and decisive, with Ensign Mackay winning the day against the Jacobite forces. Many of the men in the Jacobite ranks were Mackenzies, including their leader, the Earl of Cromartie. Many men were forced back into the sea at Littleferry and left to drown. Cromartie was later pardoned, but the other lea...
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#HistFicThursdays - Pilot Who Knows the Water - N.L. Holmes - Guest Post

It's #HistFicThursdays again, and this week I'm delighted to be welcoming back  N.L. Holmes   as part of her  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour for the final instalment of The Lord Hani Mysteries . Find out about how she engaged with writing this book, and how it felt to complete her series, in the guest post below. But first - let's meet the book... Blurb Hani must secretly obtain a Hittite bridegroom for Queen Meryet-amen, but Ay and the faction behind Prince Tut -ankh-aten are opposed -- to the point of violence. Does the death of an artisan have anything to do with Ay’s determination to see his grandson on the throne? Then, another death brings Egypt to the brink of war... Hani’s diplomatic skills will be pushed to the limit in this final book in The Lord Hani Mysteries . Pilot Who Knows the Water  is available via this Universal Link Guest Post What was the hardest thing to research for this book? I think the hardest part of researching the background for this boo...
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#HistFicThursdays - The Captain's Woman - Holly Bush - Book Excerpt

This week for #HistFicThursdays, I'm delighted to once again be teaming up with  The Coffee Pot Book Club for author Holly Bush 's blog tour! Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from her new release,  The Captain's Woman ! First of all, let's meet the book... Meet the Thompsons of Locust Street, an unconventional family taking Philadelphia high society by storm…   1870 ~ Muireall Thompson has taken her duties seriously since her parents died on the family’s crossing from Scotland to America in 1854. As the eldest sibling, their death made her responsible for her family and left little time for a life of her own. But now her brothers and sisters are adults; even the youngest is nearly ready to face the world on his own. What will she do when she is alone, other than care for an elderly aunt and volunteer at the Sisters of Charity orphanage? Has the chance for a husband and children of her own passed her by?   Widower Anthony Marcus, formerly a captain in the Union Arm...
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#HistFicThursdays - Sisters of Castle Leod - Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard - Guest Post

Happy New Year, Readers! For the first #HistFicThursdays blog of 2023, I'm delighted to be sharing a guest post from Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard  as part of her  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour for her book Sisters of Castle Leod . There is no history more enticing for me than the history of my local area, and I was delighted to discover that Elizabeth's book is not only set in the Highlands, but centres of the Mackenzies! Her guest post explores the Ghosts, Spirits, and Legends of the area which impacts on her book, but first here's the blurb to whet your appetite... Blurb **Finalist in the 2022 American Writing Awards** Millions are fans of Diana Gabaldon’s popular Outlander books and television series, but few know that Gabaldon’s fictional Castle Leoch was inspired by a real Scottish castle, Castle Leod. The two sisters who lived there at the turn of the twentieth century were among the most fascinating and talked-about women of their era.  Lady Sibell Mackenzie is a ...
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