Showing posts with label #HistoricalFiction #NewRelease #Mustread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #HistoricalFiction #NewRelease #Mustread. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 August 2019

Have you heard? Margaret Skea's fabulous #NewRelease — Katharina Fortitude — is only 0.99 on Kindle for a Limited TIme! #HistoricalFiction @margaretskea1



Katharina Fortitude
By Margaret Skea


'Beautifully written and meticulously researched - historical fiction at its best.' BooksPlease

Wittenberg 1525. The unexpected marriage of Martin Luther to Katharina von Bora has no fairytale ending.

A sign of apostasy to their enemies, and a source of consternation to their friends, it sends shock waves throughout Europe. 

Yet, as they face persecution, poverty, war, plague and family tragedy, it is Katharina’s resilience and strength of character which shines through. 

While this book can be read as a standalone, it is also the powerful conclusion to her story, begun in Katharina: Deliverance. (Runner-up in the Historical Novel Society New Novel Award 2018.)


If you like your historical fiction to be vivid, authentic and absorbing, this book is for you.


Excerpt

Chapter One
Wittenberg June 1525.

The music stops, the sound of the fiddle dying away, the piper trailing a fraction behind, as he has done all evening. I cannot help but smile as I curtsy to Justus Jonas, his answering twinkle suggesting he shares my amusement.

‘Thank you, Frau Luther,’ and then, his smile wider, so that even before he continues I suspicion it isn’t the piping amuses him, ‘For a renegade nun, you dance well.’

It is on the tip of my tongue to respond with ‘ For a cleric, so do you,’ but I stop myself, aware that should I be overheard it would likely be considered inappropriate for any woman, far less a newly married one, to speak so to an older man, however good a friend he has been. And on this day of all days, I do not wish to invite censure. Instead I say, ‘I have been well taught. Barbara saw to that. She did not wish me to disgrace myself or her, and there is a pair of slippers with the soles worn through to testify to the hours of practice she insisted upon.’

‘She succeeded admirably then.’

All around us there is the buzz of laughter and chatter, an air of goodwill evident in every flushed face. Martin is waiting at the foot of the dais, and as we turn towards him, his smile of thanks to Justus is evidence he too is grateful for the seal of approval, of me and of the marriage, our shared dance a tangible sign to the whole town that Justus Jonas at least has no reservations regarding our union. Over his shoulder I catch Barbara’s eye and she nods also. I nod back, but am unable to suppress altogether the inner voice, tonight there is drink taken, tomorrow some may feel differently.

As if he can read my mind, Justus says, a new seriousness in his tone, ‘You have not made a mistake, either of you.’ He waves his hand at the folk clustered in groups along the length of the room. ‘Look around. When the difficult times come, as no doubt they will, remember tonight and the number of those who came to wish you well.’

                            *                            *                       *

The first challenge is not long in coming. We stroll home in the moonlight, accompanied by those guests who will spend the night in the cloister with us, adding their acceptance to our union.  Among them are Martin’s parents, and three councillors from Mansfeld, snatches of their conversation penetrating my thoughts.

Hans Luder’s tone, though gruff, cannot mask his satisfaction. ‘It is a good day’s work, and glad I am to see it, however long the wait.’

Martin’s mother’s voice is sweet and low, but bubbles with amusement, like a sparkling wine as it is poured into a glass. ‘Old you may be, but I trust your end is not yet nigh.’

There is an answering chuckle from one of the councillors,  ‘Indeed,’ Frau Luder, ‘So do we all.’

Hearing him, I tuck my arm into Martin’s, the momentary disagreement regarding Cardinal Albert’s gift forgotten, and look up at the myriad stars: pin-pricks of light in an ink-flooded sky, and my heart swells.  Frau Luther – the spelling may be different, but the status is the same and a title to be proud of, and though our marriage is already two weeks old, it is the first time I have felt it truly mine. The music still rings in my ears, memory of the dancing, the coin in the chest: all symbols of the regard in which the doctor is held and in which I now share, spreading a warmth through me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Jusuts is right. This is not a mistake, or not on my part at least. And, pray God, he is right about Martin also. We part from the company at the door of our chamber, and the light from the oil lamp flickers on the bedspread Barbara Cranach gifted to us. It is the last thing I see before sleep, the first when I wake, a talisman-harbinger of good things to come.

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 Katharina Fortitude
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Margaret Skea

Margaret Skea is an award-winning novelist and short story writer. Short story credits include Neil GunnFish, the Historical Novel Society and Mslexia.

Growing up during the ‘Troubles in Northern Ireland it is perhaps inevitable that her writing often focuses on the pressures of living within conflict. Her debut novel Turn of the Tide, was the Historical Fiction winner in an Harper Collins-sponsored competition. It also gained her the Beryl Bainbridge Award for 'Best First-Time Novelist 2014'.
Katharina: Deliverance, a fictionalised biography based on the early life of the reformer Martin Luther’s wife, was placed 2nd in the Historical Novel Society New Novel Award 2018.

The newly released, Katharina: Fortitude, is the powerful conclusion to Katharina’s story, but both books can easily be read as a stand-alone.

Connect with Margaret: WebsiteTwitterFacebook.








Tuesday, 23 April 2019

Join Historical Fiction author, David Ebsworth, and find out what inspired him to write: The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale #HistoricalFiction @EbsworthDavid



Join Historical Fiction author, David Ebsworth, and find out what inspired him to write:

The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale.






It was a chance meeting. Our Wrexham MP Ian Lucas asking me if I’d ever thought of writing a story about local historical celebrity Elihu Yale. Yale has a fine and famous tomb in the grounds of St. Giles Parish Church and is taught to Wrexham school kids as the philanthropist who bequeathed some of his wealth, and his name, to help found one of the world’s most famous universities, in New Haven, Connecticut. But I knew enough else about Yale to understand that, while he may have been the original nabob, he also made much of his wealth through the Indian slave trade – and thus he didn’t interest me much as a protagonist for a novel. But life’s never that simple and, out of respect for Ian’s own interest, I decided to dig a bit deeper.

It’s a curious thing, writing historical fiction. Definitely an element of karma about it at times and this was no exception, for I immediately, and almost by accident, then stumbled on a copy of Elihu Yale’s will, sent to me from the National Archives. And a remarkable document it turned out to be. This entry, a single line: To My Wicked Wife… And then? Nothing. No bequest. Not even her name. Simply a large blank space.

So who was she, this wife of Elihu Yale? And why so wicked?

In Elihu’s various biographies, Catherine gets barely a mention, and whenever she’s mentioned the facts are invariably wrong. It took me a long time to piece together her story so that I think I now know most of what we’ll ever really discover about Mistress Yale and, while I can’t be entirely certain why Elihu chose to brand her his “wicked wife”, I’m pretty certain we’re close to the truth. Enough, at least, to convince me that Ian Lucas might be right, that Elihu Yale’s story might indeed be worth telling – but through the eyes of his much-maligned and almost forgotten wife, Catherine. Not a novel though, but a trilogy, the first part of which has hit the streets this month. It’s called The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale and here’s a short summary:

1721, and elderly Catherine Yale discovers that her second husband Elihu has left her nothing in his will except the slur of naming her a “wicked wife.” True, her private journals are filled with intimacies: her inner thoughts about life in Old Madras, where the East India Company’s intrigues are as complex as any in the Mughal Emperor’s court; about the conflicts she must endure as a mother now to the additional children she has conceived with Elihu; about her role as a spy for the political factions determined to prevent a Catholic succession to the English crown; and about the realisation that she is now wed to a husband she is quickly coming to despise. Yet these past fifty years, since the early days of her short and tragic first marriage to darling Joseph, the diaries have been kept safe and secret. Or have they? Perhaps it’s time to read them afresh, to go back before the days when Elihu first betrayed her, before she was betrayed also by the East India Company women who should have stood at her side – before she wreaked her own special revenge on them all. 

A lot of the story is pure invention but all Catherine’s family background is authentic. And that background has helped me to write this historical fiction in the way I like best. To bring some lesser-known but important periods and incidents to a wider public. In this case the story of nabob philanthropist Elihu Yale – yet a very different story from the one we think we know. Yale the Indian slave trader. Yale the philanderer. Yale the usurer.

The novel, my seventh, was published on 8th April but was also available to pre-order during January through a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign – which is interesting in itself.  So why was I wanting to crowd fund for this novel when I've already published previously? Well, I'm an "indie" author so have to raise the costs of publishing the books myself before I can sell them and (hopefully) turn a profit. That's nothing new. It's exactly how writers like John Milton and Mark Twain (plus countless other authors between the 17th and 19th Centuries) always worked. They had to fund their own books, Paradise Lost and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, through ‘subscriptions’, taking pre-orders to cover the publication costs.

But apart from raising the publishing costs, crowd funding for authors like me has another serious advantage. It’s great to have people "invest" in the book by ordering copies in advance, because this is proper market-testing, proving that there’s real interest in the story. Apart from that, each crowd funding campaign I’ve run has opened up loads of new networking links that helped me market the novels. And, just like the subscription books of old, those who help to see it published get the recognition they deserve by having their names listed in the acknowledgements section of the book itself.

The downsides? Crowd funding campaigns can’t succeed, first, unless the author’s got an existing and extensive social media presence; second, unless the campaign appeals both to crowd funding “investors” as well as simply to readers; third, unless the publication costs have been calculated properly, to include the value of the book copies or other goodies needed to fulfill the Rewards offered to subscribers; and, fourth, unless the author has sufficient reserves to make up any shortfall in the unlikely event that the campaign falls a bit short of its target because, as we all know, we should never embark on a campaign that we don’t know, with absolute certainty, we can win! Those things aside, there is the slight downside that taking pre-orders in this way diminishes, to some extent, the “buzz” and sales at the book’s actual publication date. But, for me, those are minor considerations, more than offset by the knowledge that the novel has paid for itself before it’s even launched.
The second novel in the trilogy, Wicked Mistress Yale, The Glorious Return is due for publication in late-autumn 2019, and picks up Catherine's story with her return to a London turned upside down in 1689, while the third part, Wicked Mistress Yale, The Parting Glass, is scheduled for release in mid-2020.




David Ebsworth

DAVID EBSWORTH is the pen name of writer Dave McCall, a former negotiator for Britain’s Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool but has lived in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife Ann since 1981.

Following his retirement, Dave began to write historical fiction in 2009 and has subsequently published six novels: political thrillers dealing with the 1745 Jacobite rebellion, the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, the Battle of Waterloo, warlord rivalry in sixth century Britain, and the Spanish Civil War. His sixth book, Until the Curtain Falls returns to that same Spanish conflict, following the story of journalist Jack Telford, and is published in Spanish under the title Hasta Que Caiga el TelĂ³n. Jack Telford, as it happens, is also the main protagonist in a separate novella, The Lisbon Labyrinth.

Each of Dave’s novels has been critically acclaimed by the Historical Novel Society and been awarded the coveted BRAG Medallion for independent authors. 

This seventh novel, The Doubtful Diaries of Wicked Mistress Yale, is the first in a trilogy about the life of nabob philanthropist (and slave-trader) Elihu Yale, told through the eyes of his much-maligned and largely forgotten wife, Catherine.

Connect with David: Website.




Friday, 22 March 2019

Have you heard? #HistoricalFiction author, Jayne Davis, has a fabulous #NewRelease out — Sauce for the Gander @jaynedavis142


Sauce for the Gander
By Jayne Davis


A duel. An ultimatum. An arranged marriage.
England, 1777
Will, Viscount Wingrave, whiles away his time gambling and bedding married women, thwarted in his wish to serve his country by his controlling father.
News that his errant son has fought a duel with a jealous husband is the last straw for the Earl of Marstone. He decrees that Will must marry. The earl’s eye lights upon Connie Charters, unpaid housekeeper and drudge for a poor but socially ambitious father who cares only for the advantage her marriage could bring him.
Will and Connie meet for the first time at the altar. But Connie wants a husband who will love and respect her, not a womaniser and a gambler.
Their new home, on the wild coast of Devonshire, conceals dangerous secrets that threaten them and the nation. Can Will and Connie overcome the forces against them and forge a happy life together?


Excerpt
Late that afternoon Connie was summoned once more to the study, where the lowering sun slanted a pink light through the windows. Her father sat behind his desk, a small pile of papers before him and a rare expression of satisfaction on his face.
“Sit down, Constance. I have good news for you.”
That sounded ominous.
“You are about to improve your situation in the world. Lord Marstone came today to agree your marriage arrangements.”
Connie stared at him. “Marriage?” To the fat old man with a gouty foot?
No.
“Yes, yes. Marriage!” His complacent smirk faded. “You should be thanking me. That is what all young women should aspire to, marrying well.”
Nausea rose in her throat. “Papa, he’s old enough to be—” She bit her lip against her words, and against rising panic. He was old enough to be her father, yes, but Charters wouldn’t see that as an impediment.
“Ha! No, girl. The marriage is to his son. I’ll have a viscountess for a daughter, a countess one day.”
The son who fights duels over loose women? She closed her eyes for a moment—that could be worse.
“But Papa, I have never even seen him!”
“What difference does that make? It’s all arranged, you ungrateful girl.” He tapped the papers on his desk. “The contract is signed and witnessed, and irrevocable. You will be married at Eversham on Monday, at eleven…”
Three days?
Her father talked on, his tone gloating, but she was no longer listening. Was she even to meet her future husband before the ceremony? Was it truly irrevocable? What if she told her father—no, told the earl—some fiction about a lover, that she was no longer—
“Constance!”
She started as her father’s hand slammed onto the desk. His smile was completely gone now, a vein bulging in one temple.
“Some gratitude would be fitting,” he spat. “It’s a better match than you could ever have hoped to make. Get your things packed up, and make sure you don’t disgrace me on Monday. Now get out of my sight!”
Tears pricking her eyes, Connie got to her feet and left the room. In the hallway she hesitated, clenching her hands into fists so that her nails dug into her palms. She’d be alone in her room, but that wasn’t what she needed—instead, she turned the other way and strode out of the house, out of the gate and across the fields.
***

Another excerpt from Chapter 1, can be read at the end of my post on Duelling and its place in history. Read the excerpt HERE!

Jayne Davis

Jayne Davis writes historical romances set in the late
Georgian/Regency era, published as both ebooks and 
paperbacks.

She was hooked on Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer as 
teenager, and longed to write similar novels herself. 
Real life intervened, and she had several 
careers, including as a non-fiction author under another 
name. That wasn't quite the writing career she had in mind...

Finally, she got around to polishing up stories written for her own amusement in
 long winter evenings, and became the kind of author she’d dreamed of in her 
teens. She is now working on the first few books in the Marstone Series, set in 
the late Georgian/early Regency period.

Connect with Jayne: WebsiteFacebookPinterest.