Writing

Meet our Renaissance Rivals – Lucrezia and Isabella

Today I am hosting Karen Essex and her latest release, Renaissance Rivals as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club blog tour. Ms Essex has written an interesting story, featuring not only the rivals themselves, but also – however indirectly – the great masters of the period she is writing about: Leonardo da Vinci (who, […]

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Queen Anna – welcoming Tony Riches and his latest release

Today, I am delighted to welcome Tony Riches back to my blog, this time to celebrate his recent release, Queen Anna Anna was born a Danish princess, daughter to the keen amateur chemist Sofia of Mecklenburg and Fredrik II. Her mother was a big fan of Tycho Brahe, not so Anna’s brother, Christian IV, both

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Poor little Maria – the sad story of a medieval princess

Medieval princesses had it tough. Rarely did they experience the joy of a loving union—Eleanor of Castile and her Edward is one of the major exceptions to that—often were they sent off to lands unknown, never to return. Yes, they were raised to do this. They were educated and buffed and polished, and many likely

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Life Choices and reading choices – my August newsletter

Of late, I’ve been thinking about choices. We make so many choices, don’t we, and sometimes we don’t quite understand that making one choice effectively kills opportunities f, K, Q and Z. So when next we haveto make a choice, the selection is smaller. Not necessarily a bad thing—having to choose can be difficult and

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Princesses and kings – a post inspired by Sharon Bennett Connolly’s latest book

I have just finished reading Princesses of the Early Middle Ages by Sharon. Yes, I call her Sharon – I have been interacting with her for well over a decade, ever since I discovered her blog “History-the interesting bits“. By now, Sharon has publised a lot of books, all of them non-fiction, all of them

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No Ordinary June – giving a Regency Romance some limelight

When I was asked to join this Yarde Book Promotion book tour, I had NO idea I would be hosting an author who lives in Sweden. But there you have it: Ms Jacobs lives in my country – lei è veramente la benvenuta qui! Not that there’s much Italian or Swedish in her book –

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Waterways and Windsor – a coda to our hiking trip

Ha! Surely you did not think I’d milked my recent travels to their full extent? No, no, dear peeps, that is not the case. So: a final post (hmm) about my recent adventures along the Thames, and let’s start with saying hello to Windsor. To me, Windsor is all about the castle, perched atop a

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Hiking along the Thames – a summary

On one of my previous posts, someone left a comment asking me to specify our route along the Thames. In total, the route we walked is approximately 77 miles, around 125 km, but that excludes back-and-forth to hotels, plus detours. Like on our second day, we detoured to Dorchester, which added a couple of miles.

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Hiking along the Thames – the final stretch

I was supposed to have posted this yesterday, seeing as I promised you a follow-up post about Cliveden House the day before that, but I was simply too tired! But better late than never, right? So: on Saturday’s walk,  we marched past Cliveden House, but after expanding on Bisham Abbey, it felt excessive to go

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