News and media
Tuesday, 01 January 2013 00:00
Mistress to the Crown
For reviews, a blurb about the book and to read an extract, please visit publications. For more about the real historical Mistress Shore, go to Inspiration for a New Novel. However, I thought it might be fun here to imagine how a modern day reporter might handle the rumours about the gorgeous Mistress Shore in the 1470s before she met the king.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012 01:36
The next big thing
Wishing all readers a most joyous Christmas and a wonderful 2013!Where would we writers be without you? And to those of you who have sent off a mss and who hope the New Year will bring success at last, may your dreams come true! Authors Richard Harland and Anne Whitehead have kindly tagged me on their blogs, as part of an international chain of book and author interviews called THE NEXT BIG THING. Today it's…
Thursday, 01 November 2012 00:00
Upcoming e-books
FLEUR DE LIS and THE MAIDEN AND THE UNICORN are shortly to appear as e-books which means that readers in North America will be finally able to access FLEUR DE LIS easily. Fleur is about a delightful café owner in Paris in the 1790s and, dear readers, I assure you it is absolutely guillotine-free! THE DEVIL IN ERMINE is also in press and should be out by the end of the year. It is the Duke…
Thursday, 08 November 2012 07:20
At last! - Mistress to the Crown
I am delighted to finally announce that MISTRESS TO THE CROWN will be in the shops in Australia in February and is being published by Mira Harlequin. It is the story of Elizabeth Lambard, known to history as Mistress “Jane” Shore, who was King Edward IV’s beloved mistress for about eight years and was probably the nicest of the rich and famous of the late fifteenth century. People have always found her story fascinating. In…
Thursday, 30 September 2010 00:00
Encountering your hero and heroine's descendants
When you write about historical people, it’s always a thrill to meet someone who is actually descended from them. Often, it turns out to be a cadet branch, but when you come across a Dudley, a Hastings and a Tyrell, who can trace their line back to the fifteenth century and further still, it’s quite mind-blowing.
Tuesday, 27 March 2007 00:00
The case of the missing head
I thought you might be interested to hear about ‘The Case of the Bishop’s Missing Head’. Some years ago I came across the fact that Cardinal John Morton’s fine tomb in Canterbury was empty. I haven’t much time for Morton, who was one of King Henry VII’s advisors, and he wasn’t particularly flavour of the month among his contemporaries either. His policy was: if you flaunt your wealth, you can pay more tax, and if…
Tuesday, 01 September 2009 00:00
For the geographically challenged
For those of us who ground our novels in British history, it really is tough when you don’t live there. You can’t just swan off to a Welsh castle where you’ve set your latest book and see what the view is like from the tower, or go sussing out a battle field like Culloden. Truly there is no substitute for seeing the lie of the land in person and you often get good ideas for…
Friday, 01 February 2008 00:00
Hugh Dispenser’s body found?
I was really very excited about this. Those of you who have read The Knight and the Rose may recall the horrible fate of King Edward II’s adviser (and possibly his gay lover), Hugh Despenser the younger, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in Hereford in 1326. So you can imagine how fascinating it was to read Laura Clout’s article on the discovery of his body (well, parts of it) in the UK Telegraph.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011 00:00
Inspiration for a new novel
The National Library of Australia has recently opened a Treasures Gallery with some very interesting exhibits: a letter from Jane Austen to her sister, Cassandra, the original Waltzing Matilda manuscript, Captain William Bligh’s list of the Bounty mutineers and the Endeavour journal of Captain Cook. Yet the item that interests me most is a 1790s playbill advertising the drama Jane Shore which was being performed in the fledgling colony of Botany Bay. This little handbill…