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Showing posts from August, 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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#HistFicThursdays - A Meadow Murder - Helen Hollick

   Today, I'm delighted to be shining a spotlight on Helen Hollick's brilliant book,  A Meadow Murder ,   as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! So, let's meet the book... "As delicious as a Devon Cream Tea!" ~ author Elizabeth St John "Every sentence pulls you back into the early 1970s... The Darling Buds of May, only not Kent, but Devon. The countryside itself is a character and Hollick imbues it with plenty of emotion" ~ author Alison Morton *** Make hay while the sun shines? But what happens when a murder is discovered, and country life is disrupted? Summer 1972. Young library assistant Jan Christopher and her fiancé, DS Lawrence Walker, are on holiday in North Devon. There are country walks and a day at the races to enjoy, along with Sunday lunch at the village pub, and the hay to help bring in for the neighbouring farmer. But when a body is found the holiday plans are to change into an investigation of murder, hampered by a resting actor, a wom...
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#HistFicThursdays - The Shadow Earl - Stella Riley - Book Snippet

   This week for #HistFicThursdays, I'm delighted to once again be teaming up with  The Coffee Pot Book Club  for author  Stella Riley 's blog tour! Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from her brilliant new book,  The Shadow Earl ! First of all, let's meet the book... At the end of his Grand Tour, somewhere between Athens and Constantinople, Christian Selwyn, the young Earl of Hazelmere, vanished - seemingly without a trace. Time passes.  In London, his uncle and cousin move into his home … while his unofficial fiancée, Sophia, is left desolate and in limbo.  Finally, his friends – loyal and close as brothers – set out to search in person.   Christian’s startling re-appearance at a grand ball takes society by storm and fuels endless speculation. Where has he been during these three missing years? What happened to him?   And more importantly, how did it happen?   Only one thing is clear.  The earl who left England...
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#HistFicThursdays - Esperanza's Way - Cindy Burkart Maynard - Book Excerpt

 This week for #HistFicThursdays, I'm delighted to once again be teaming up with  The Coffee Pot Book Club  for author  Cindy Burkart Maynard 's blog tour! Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from her fabulous book,  Esperanza's Way ! First of all, let's meet the book... Motivated by the memory of her mother dying in her arms, Esperanza resolves that she will one day walk the halls of the Scola Medica at Salerno and train to become a healer. Fate brought Amika, a talented herbalist, into her life and helped Esperanza take her first steps toward gaining the knowledge that would fulfill her dream. Unfortunately, a tragic accident forced Esperanza to flee Amika's home. Her journey toward finding the path to success is littered with stumbling blocks, some more difficult to avoid than she expected. You can buy  Esperanza's Way  via this  Universal Link And here's an excerpt from the first chapter to whet your appetite: PONFERRADA, SPRING 1259 A mangle-e...
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#HistFicThursdays - Alexander the Great - The Person Behind the Legend

We at Stempster are madly knitting as part of CHAS's fundraiser  (they do fantastic work, so please consider making a little donation). Thankfully, Judith has taken pity on me and, since she's also a historical fiction writer, she's written this blog about one of her real-life characters...  Most of the historical figures we’ve had so far in this series have been people who are discovered through committed research, rather than the sort of people who leap out of the history books and who are the subject of various school topics throughout the years. This time, because this blog is by me – Judith – my take on historical writing is quite different. So, instead of sharing facts about some largely unknown people from history, I’m going to write about someone I can guarantee you’ve heard of: Alexander III of Macedonia, better known to history as Alexander the Great. (Source: https://malevus.com/what-did-alexander-the-great-look-like/) That said, for possibly one of the most famo...
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#HistFicThursdays - The Trouble with Genres

 Recently, someone on the Historical Writers Forum was talking about how to categorise their new WIP (which sounds like it will be amazing!), and had settled on "medieavally-inspired nonsense". And it got me thinking... why do we need to categorise books so rigidly? Historical Fiction has, for quite a long time, been thought of as a settling as least as much as a genre. After all, we have Historical Romance, Historical Adventure, Historical Mystery, and Historical Fantasy. But this begs two questions: Is "historical" a subgenre rather than a genre or a setting? And then: does it matter? Our love of labels has gone mad! Amazon love to attitribute genres. I suppose there are those who go onto certain sections and have a look at them but, as an author, they are horribly flawed. Example: Beneath Black Clouds and White  is listed on Amazon  in the Historical French Fiction  category. Why? Because it begins with the French Revolution. None of it, however, takes part in Fr...
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