Lindsay Townsend's Blog, page 22

Warm up your New Year - 'The Snow Bride' is out today!

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Now out at Bookstrand Publishing 2011
15% discount until January 3! Order here.

Read Chapter One

Here is another new excerpt to tempt you:

She smiled, and he could see her smile. "Magnus." She stroked his hair. In this kind semi-dark, oily blackness, he could feel whole again, and then, as she skimmed herself on top of him, he recognized that she made him whole. They could be in bright summer sun in an Eastern pleasure garden and he would feel needed, handsome, desired.

She truly wanted him, he thought in wonder, as she undid his tunic and fumbled with his belt, whispering, "Let me, let me, you are so big, my lovely troll..."

She kissed him on his mouth, jaw, chin, throat, and chest, light, swift embraces that poured heat and honey into him. Her hands trailed up his arms and legs, down his flanks and across his belly.

She was shy and bold together. "Do I do right?" she whispered, and he nodded and caressed her in return, delighting in her sleek, lithe shape, though all too soon, she lifted his hand away.

"Do I do right?" she asked again. "Only, I have not, not..." she paused as if seeking words, and he understood at once.

His bold, shy, loving little witch was a virgin.

And she chose me.

The brutish part of him wanted to holler her name to the rafters and make her his at once, but Elfrida needed more than that, far more. Her first time, he thought tenderly, shaken out of any doubts of her wanting him by her own brave, sweet admission.

"Never fret, my sweet, we shall do well together." He slowed his caresses, wanting her to delight in them and to take only pleasure, never pain or fear, from their union.

"You are too sweet in your favors," she breathed as he touched her. "You make me forget and stop—Magnus!"

She shuddered above him as he lightly tongued her breasts, her head falling back as she surrendered to the moment.

His desire was strong, but he told himself to forget it. He knew Denzil was out there in the hall, prying and spying, even if he had a girl of his own, but told himself to forget that, too.

Love Elfrida as she deserves to be loved.


Feeling took the place of thought. He gathered his witch-lass close and turned her to her side, shielding her from greedy eyes with his own rough body.

He nuzzled her breasts and settled her in the crook of his arm, running his fingers slowly down the smooth links of her spine. He heard her swallow and felt about for his flagon, offering it to her.

She gulped a draft and spluttered thanks in her own dialect, her voice strangled into a gasp as he dripped the mead onto her nipples and tenderly licked it off her. She raked at her clothes and his, endearingly clumsy in her need, slipping her hands into the revealed gaps in his tunic and braies to touch and caress him. By the single torchlight he saw her eyes, wide with looking—she could not see enough of him. And she kissed his arms and legs, once even his peg leg, and flicked her hair teasingly across his loins, too diffident to caress him intimately, without invitation.

Warm up your winter: 'The Snow Bride'

She is Beauty, but is he the Beast?

Elfrida, spirited, caring and beautiful, is also alone. She is the witch of the woods and no man dares to ask for her hand in marriage until a beast comes stalking brides and steals away her sister. Desperate, the lovely Elfrida offers herself as a sacrifice, as bridal bait, and she is seized by a man with fearful scars. Is he the beast?

In the depths of a frozen midwinter, in the heart of the woodland, Sir Magnus, battle-hardened knight of the Crusades, searches ceaselessly for three missing brides, pitting his wits and weapons against a nameless stalker of the snowy forest. Disfigured and hideously scarred, Magnus has finished with love, he thinks, until he rescues a fourth 'bride', the beautiful, red-haired Elfrida, whose innocent touch ignites in him a fierce passion that satisfies his deepest yearnings and darkest desires.

Coming Dec 27th from Bookstrand Publishing 2011
15% discount until January 3! Pre-order here.

Read Chapter One

Here is another excerpt to tempt you:

Magnus was worried. The fire he had made should have brought his people. It was an old signal, well-known between them. His men should have reached the village by now—that had been the arrangement. They were bringing traps and provisions in covered wagons, and hunting dogs and horses. He had been impatient to start his pursuit of the Forest Grendel and so rode ahead, returning with the messenger until that final stretch when the man turned off to his home. He had ridden on alone, finding the wayside shrine.

But from then, all had gone awry. Instead of the monster, he had found an ailing witch, and the snowstorm had lost him more tracks and time.

Magnus shook his head, turning indulgent eyes to the small, still figure on the rough pallet. At least the little witch had slept through the night and day, snug and safe, and he had been able to make her a litter from woven branches. He would give his fire signal a little longer and then return Elfrida to her village. There he might find someone who could translate between them.

Perhaps she did have power, for even as he looked at her, she sat up, the hood of her cloak falling away, and stared at him in return. She said something, then repeated it, and he drew in a great gulp of cold air in sheer astonishment, then laughed.

"I know what you said!" He wanted to kiss her, spots and all.

He burst into a clumsy canter, dragging his peg leg a little and almost tumbling onto her bed. She caught him by the shoulders and tried to steady him but collapsed under his weight.

They finished in an untidy heap on the pallet, with Elfrida hissing by his ear, "Why have you done such a foolish thing as to burn all our fuel?"

He rolled off her, knocked snow off his front and beard, and said in return, "How did you know I would know the old speech, the old English?"

"I dream true, and I dreamed this." She was blushing, though not, he realized quickly, from shyness.

"Why burn so wildly?" she burst out, clearly furious. "You have wasted it! All that good wood gone to ash!"

"My men know my sign and will come now the storm has gone." He had not expected thanks or soft words, but he was not about to be scolded by this red-haired nag.

"That is your plan, Sir Magnus? To burn half the forest to alert your troops?"

"A wiser plan than yours, madam, setting yourself as bait. Or had your village left you hanging there, perhaps to nag the beast to death?"

Her face turned as scarlet as the fire. "So says any witless fool! 'Tis too easy a charge men make against women, any woman who thinks and acts for herself. And no man orders me!"

Magnus swallowed the snort of laughter filling up his throat. He doubted she saw any amusement in their finally being able to speak to each other only to quarrel. Had she been a man or a lad, he would have knocked her into the snow, then offered a drink of mead, but such rough fellowship was beyond him here.

"And how would you have fought off any knave, or worse, that found you?" he asked patiently. "You did not succeed with me."

"There are better ways to vanquish a male than brute force. I knew what I was about!"

"Truly? You were biding your time? And the pox makes you alluring?"

"Says master gargoyle! My spots will pass!"

"Or did you plan to scatter a few herbs, perhaps?"

He thought he heard her clash her teeth together. "I did not plan my sickness, and I do not share my secrets! Had you not snatched me away, had you not interfered, I would know where the monster lives. I would have found my sister! I would be with her!" Her voice hitched, and a look of pain and dread crossed her face. "We would be together. Whatever happens, I would be with her."

"This was Christina?"

"Is Christina, not was, never was! I know she lives!"

Magnus merely nodded, his temper cooling rapidly as he marked how her color had changed and her body shook. A desperate trap to recover a much-loved sister excused everything, to his way of thinking.

She called you a gargoyle! This piqued his vanity and pride.

But she does not think you the monster, Magnus reminded himself in a dazzled, shocked wonder, embracing that knowledge like a lover.

A sweet Christmas fantasy - with hot chocolate

I wrote 'A Christmas Sleeping Beauty' as my take on a fairy story and as a piece of historical fantasy - which is where the hot chocolate comes in. (Hot chocolate, or rather cocoa, is my favourite Christmas drink.)

Today 'A Christmas Sleeping Beauty' is published by MuseItUp.

Handsome, confident, a touch arrogant, Prince Orlando thinks that now he has found Sleeping Beauty, his kiss will wake her at once. When it does not, he realizes he has much to learn about life, and love.

Princess Rosie, trapped in her enchanted sleep, dreams of a mysterious man. Is he a rescuer, or a nightmare? She must fight to recover herself, and all before Christmas, for time is running out.

Published by MuseItUp at $2.50

MuseItUp Publishing

To read an excerpt, please go here.

'The English Daughter' - Romantic suspense reissued by Lysandra Press

Young widow Val Baker restores musical instruments, but fears her relationship with her Greek-Italian family on Corfu is broken beyond repair.

Returning to the island to work on a rare piano belonging to her Greek friend Alexia, she finds her dreams haunted by memories of Hilary; a young English girl raped and murdered ten years before. Val determines to uncover the truth about the case, and set to rest her own doubts about the involvement of her father, Yiannis, and half-brother, Markos, both policemen who were involved in the original investigation.

Joined by her friend Harry, Val begins to unravel the threads. When two strange tokens arrive, one for Alexia's daughter Chloe and one for Val, it becomes clear that Hilary's unknown killer is on Val's trail. Her search for the truth becomes a race for life.

Previously published by Severn House.
Reissued as an ebook by Lysandra Press 2011.
£2.99.

Buy the Ebook now

Read Chapter One

Another excerpt:

They returned to an arcaded street where they could stroll side by side, and Harry released Val's fingers. Perversely, Val was disappointed.

'Wait, please.' Harry crouched in the middle of the alley to retie one shoelace. Steve and Judith pushed round them. Judith, counting caged birds, called, 'There's another!'

Staring down at Harry, Val wondered if he was trying to put her off balance. Even as she thought it, he glanced up, straight at her. 'How about that visit to your workshop right now?'

'No cemetery?' Val teased back.

Harry laughed, but said, 'Or you go on alone there, if you want. Time in your own place.' He rose, looking her up and down, his face hardening. 'You've had enough today.'

Did she trust Harry? Could she really rely on him?

'Val.' Harry's voice returned Val to the middle of the alley. 'What do you say? A simple yes will do.'

Since when did he become so bossy? Val marvelled, uncertain what to make of this new Harry. She opened her mouth but was forestalled by Judith. Her daughter ran back up the street and cannoned into her legs.

'There's a poster round the corner of Beauty and the Beast! Can we go, Mummy, please?'

Val drew Judy out of the road and knelt in front of her daughter. Had she and Judith been alone, she would have happily gone to see her child's favourite film, but asking Steve or Harry to do so was unfair.

'Judy, I don't think—' she began, when Steve touched her arm.

'It's no problem,' he said, quietly. 'There's a film starting in about twenty minutes. Won't do me any harm.'

Harry took out his wallet and thrust a wad of euros at Steve. 'Have an ice-cream while you're about it,' he remarked, nodding at Judy.

Val admitted it made sense. Her workshop really wasn't the place for Judy and they all needed a lift after that family reunion.

'Right, but come straight back to the workshop as soon as the film's over. You're clear about the address? And you know where you're going?

'You put Steve up to that,' she said, waving them off, watching until they had turned the corner.

'Did I?' Harry was looking past her, right over her head.

'What?' Val turned, her eye drawn to a poster celebrating the return of the 'International Performer' Stefan Gregory to Corfu. Hear him live at the Achillion! the poster proclaimed, a horrible irony. 'I need a newspaper, Harry.'

'There's a little shop three doors down. I'm sure they'll sell them.' Harry stepped round Val and was off. 'You'll translate the crime reports?' he called back. 'I still don't read Greek so well.'

Val trotted to catch up. 'Why do you want to know?'

Harry swung round. 'No, Val. The question is, why do you?'

'Why are you still thinking like a policeman? You're as bad—' Val stopped the rest of the complaint. She didn't want her father or Markos shadowing them, least of all Markos.

As bad as Nick, finished Harry in his own mind. Maybe he should go after Judy and Steve. The rest of this evening was going to be a bust.



'This is it.' Val set her shoulder to the workshop door.

'Good God,' Harry said.

'You like it?' Val was surprised. Most visitors to Nonno's workshop were overwhelmed. Nick had said, 'How do you move in here?' but Harry entered the room as she did, with a quiet confidence.

They breathed in together, sharing the scents of resin, polish and wood. His eyes were everywhere, taking in the dismantled pianos, lighting on the old hard swatches of felt, sweeping to the stone sink in the corner and up the walls with their shelves and tools. He turned about in a circle.

'Whenever I picture you at work, I'll always see you here.'

Val nodded, swallowing. She was foolishly touched by Harry's sensitivity and ashamed of her earlier churlishness. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't apologize. You say sorry far too much.'

She walked over to him. 'Bend down - you've got a cobweb.'

Harry half crouched and she lifted spider and web off the bronzing temple close to his left ear, marvelling at the Viking hair, the thick golden brows and eyelashes, pitying his slightly receding hairline. She dangled the spider on the closed shutters, startled by her own disappointment that Harry had made no attempt to touch her in return.

The heat's getting to me, she thought, turning from the shutters straight into Harry's arms.

'Hello,' he said.

'Hello back.' Aware that the next move must come from her, she transferred the local newspaper from her left hand into both hands, gripping it in front of her, and rested her head against his breastbone.

There was no sense of wonder, or fireworks, as there had been with Nick. Val was oddly divorced from her senses. She didn't want more than this floating peace. 'I can't—'

'Sssh. It's all right.' He brushed her jaw with his fingers, seeking her chin to raise her head. 'I only want to look at you.'

'You've seen me lots of times,' Val muttered at his stomach.

'True, but not here.'

'We're not in Fenfield,' she agreed, and lifted her face to his.

In the distance there was a knocking. Val didn't connect it with the workshop until Harry placed a warning finger on her lips.

'Let me in!' Markos hammered on her door. As Val tensed, he kicked the solid black wood of the outer door and left without noticing that it was unlocked.

'That was lucky,' Val said, as his pounding feet faded away.

Harry spread a hand across the middle of her back and teased her closer. 'You've already told me about Markos, but am I missing something?'

Val batted him with the paper. 'Stop being a copper. It's not important.'

'Isn't it?'

'Leave it alone, Harry.'

'Fair enough, Val.' He released her and strode to the window, strumming his left hand down the length of one shutter. 'What about that newspaper report you wanted to see?'

Sensing that even this activity would be the prelude to more questions, Val spread the paper on the bench. Harry came to stare over her shoulder.

'Well?' he prompted above her, leaning on his braced arm, his palm spread on the bench amongst a tiny, forgotten pile of old wood shavings.

'It says very little.' Even as she scanned the pages covering the latest murder, she wondered just how much her companion understood. Not only about the body found at the Achillion.

'A young woman's naked body, discovered amongst trees in the grounds of the Achillion,' she paraphrased. 'No one seems to know who she is, what nationality. It says she died of a broken neck.'

'Her killer must be physically strong, then,' said Harry.

Val's fingers traced the lines. 'The paper speaks of other wounds that the police won't disclose. It doesn't say she was raped, but people are already talking about the Achillion killer striking again.'

'How many times has this happened? Bodies of naked young women found in a well-known beauty spot?'

'I wouldn't call the Achillion beautiful.'

'Tourist spot. Whatever. What's going on, Val? When Markos trumpeted his news, you went white.'

Why did she feel tempted to confess? 'It was years ago,' she said, covering her confusion by folding up the newspaper. 'An English tourist called Hilary Moffat was killed here. She vanished from Corfu town and was found raped and murdered in the grounds of the Achillion the following night.'

'What distances are we talking here? Between Corfu town and the Achillion?'

'About ten kilometres. An easy road south.'

'So it's likely the killer had some kind of transport. And possibly an appealing manner, to lure the girl into it?'

'I should think so.' Val had considered these points long ago. 'It would be hard to snatch someone off the streets: too many people would see.'

'Were there any suspects the first time?'

Val shook her head. 'I don't know. The newspapers never mentioned anyone. No one was charged.'

'And the first victim was also naked?'

Val nodded, blushing as Harry looked at her, his head tilted to one side so that he could see all her face.

'You knew her.'

'She was a music student like me, that's all.'

She expected more  what, she couldn't say. More questions, possibly. Instead, Harry's face closed down as she spoke.

'I see.' He returned to his vantage point beside the shutters.

'What? What do you see?' Val became more exasperated as Harry smiled  and not a pleasant smile.

'Not comfortable, is it, being shut out?'

'I'm not . . . It's difficult . . .' Val stammered, alarmed by her unexpected wish to please Harry. 'I'm probably crazy, anyway. Too many dreams.'

Harry wandered back to her, reached under the bench and lifted out her tall stool. 'Why don't we start again? You sit here and explain as much as you feel easy to tell me.'

Val sat on the stool and glanced at her watch.

'We've plenty of time. The film won't have started yet,' Harry coaxed.

'I know.' Anxious about confessing her involvement with Hilary, Val chewed on her lower lip.

Harry crossed the stone flags yet again and peered through the gap in the shutters. 'Nothing you say will change my good opinion of you— Hello! There's someone outside. He's coming here.'

A brisk rattling at the inner door.

Medieval vampires - dead or alive...

Did people in the Middle Ages really believe in vampires? They certainly believed in ghosts, which they called revenants, from the Latin meaning 'to return'. It was believed that the unquiet dead, particularly those who had died by violence or by reason of a grudge, would return to haunt the living and try to take revenge on them. These revenants might haunt a graveyard or a particular area, known to them in life, and terrorize the living.

They also believed that the dead could be commanded to rise again and spirits or demons compelled to do a wizard's bidding, through the dark art of necromancy. A surprising number of priests were interested in these dubious practices as a means of gaining power or knowledge. Priests might also seek to exorcise spirits possessing people, by means of prayer or sacred herbs or charms.

Vampires, however, do not really make an appearance until the fourteenth century. Why then?

In 1348 the Black Death struck Europe. Thousands died and thousands of rotting corpses had to be buried, often in mass graves. Sights of these bodies was often grisly and bloody, and so the idea of the vampire, feeding on the blood of the living, came into force.

Recently a body in a medieval Italian mass grave on the Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo was found with a slab of rock slammed between its jaws – a crude anti-vampire measure. The dead woman was suspected by the grave-diggers of being a vampire, possibly because of gruesome sights around her decomposing body when they had re-opened the mass grave to bury more plague victims. So the frightened grave-diggers put a brick in her mouth to stop her chewing through her shroud and escaping the grave to infect others. A very grisly measure!


In my forthcoming medieval historical romance,  The Snow Bride (due out Dec 27th), I don't mention medieval vampires but I do deal with witchcraft and necromancers. My heroine, red-haired Elfrida, is a witch and wise-woman and through the 'magic' of love she helps my scarred hero Magnus. Both Elfrida and Magnus must battle against an evil necromancer – a medieval wizard who summoned spirits and demons – and, in a desperate race against time, recover Elfrida's younger sister. In The Snow Bride I show medieval magic and beliefs, but not medieval vampires. Maybe in another story?

'Voices in the Dark' - romantic excerpt in Venice.

To celebrate the re-issue of my romantic suspense, 'Voices in the Dark,' here is a romantic excerpt where the hero Roberto and heroine Julia go to Venice.

Excerpt.

Venice. Neither Julia nor Roberto had ever been to the floating city. Free of memories and ghosts, deserted by tourists in a day of freezing fog, Venice was theirs.
      Leaning out on the Rialto bridge, Julia spoke their united thought. 'Glad we came.' Time, their constant harrier, glided like the mist gilded streams under their feet as they regarded each other.
      They kissed on the bridge, the silver fog rising from the water hiding them and the city in a secret embrace.
     'I wish we could stay,' said Roberto, when they surfaced a little from the kiss. Julia turned a dreamy open face sidelong and ran her eyes over him. She wanted this rippling quiet, this day of misted sun glinting on the tops of suspended marble palaces, to go on for ever. No more struggle for success no more troubles. No more Scarpia.
     'I can't get used to you without that plaster cast,' she murmured, obliterating the world as she pressed her cheek against his chest. 'I like the suit.' Dark grey, classically cut, worn with eye-grabbing panache, the suit had been a revelation. She already had designs for borrowing the waistcoat. She hugged him tight. 'You look great.'
     'And you are truly gorgeous.' Roberto stroked a hand down her back. 'Why do you hide those legs?'
     His hand, and even more his eyes were doing things to her.
     'Shall we?' he said.
     'Yes.'
    
      They took a gondola. Paying the gondolier not to sing, they settled against the heart-shaped backrest, Roberto giving Julia his cushion. Whilst he chatted to the gondolier about the latest football scores, Julia trailed her fingers through mist to cold, silken, softly grey-green waters. Both were too aware of each other to need more than the lightest touch of their bodies, side by side as they floated on the cradle of Venice's canals.
     Venice in a shimmering winter mist was as one of its more extravagant glass creations, cloudy and baroque at the base, its marble statues and wrought-iron house-grills looming through the mist like porcelain flowers stuck on Venetian chandeliers. Then halfway up the narrow buildings - just over the top of Roberto's brown spiky curls, Julia calculated - the mist thinned and sunshine dusted each white campanile.
     'We're here,' Roberto said softly. The gondola swayed against a painted landing post; a doorstep floated inches above the water. This was his surprise to her: a home, not a hotel, their own private place. He had booked it, along with a few extras, at Florence airport before they made their flight.
     He opened the front door. The gondolier, paid and tipped, was gossiping into his portable phone about having met Roberto Padovano. ' . . . and you know he's really normal . . . great bloke . . . asked about the big match, you know, Roma versus Inter-Milan . . .'
     Someone in the Romanesque palace opposite shook their shoes out of the balcony window. Hidden by a curve of buildings, muted by fog, two waterbuses honked as they passed on the Grand Canal.
     Julia rose circumspectly to her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was spoil the moment, shatter the delicious tension by an ungainly lurch off the boat. In jeans and trainers she would not have thought twice, but high heels and a fitted coat were a different matter.
     Roberto did not offer his hand but merely plucked her from the gondola, swinging her lightly off her feet into his arms. They entered the Venetian house that way, Roberto crossing the threshold carrying Julia. Closing the door on the grinning gondolier, he continued an unhurried advance to the bedroom.
     'Didn't I see a piano as we whisked through the living-room?' asked Julia. 'And a log fire and a Christmas hamper?'
     'You did,' answered Roberto, unbuttoning her coat, 'This was once a composer's house. Now it's a luxury holiday home.' Slowly, he unfastened her shoes.
     Julia closed her eyes as his strong fingers brushed her ankles. 'Which composer?' she asked softly, as her high heels went skating across the mosaic floor to the big sunlit window.
     'A German. He wrote many beautiful hymns - but then German is a spiritual language.' Spirit was not what Roberto was feeling at that moment. He swept her out of her coat onto the gold satin sheets.
     Julia helped him to shrug off his jacket and loosen his tie. 'What kind of language is English?' she asked, her nimble fingers undoing his waistcoat as his hands deftly slid into her dress, dispatching the fastenings. Her fingers brushed warm flesh as his thumbs circled the engorged nipples of her breasts.
     'Definitely pastoral.' Roberto's hands slipped gently between her thighs. 'Country matters.' As she gasped he kissed her.
     Off came the rest of the clothes, in silent, feverish haste. The pleasure of seeing each other naked was to be fully enjoyed in a later, less urgent moment; now it was contact, the mutual desire for possession. They burned in each other's arms.
     'What about French?' Julia murmured several long moments later, fingers teasing an intimate caress. He was so firm, so good to touch; she wanted all of him.    
     'Intellectual.' Her hand guided. Her body enfolded. It was better than anything he had known before. Sweating, rigid in delight, Roberto forced himself to be slow.
     Julia felt him moving deep inside her. The virtues of Spanish and Italian must keep. She kissed his throat. His arms tightened around her. The spikes of pleasure intensified as his hips ground against hers. She writhed beneath him. As he came he shouted her name. As she came she kissed him on the mouth.
     For both, it had been worth the wait.


Smashwords and Kindle 2011
$3.99

Buy the ebook:

Smashwords
Amazon Kindle (US)
Amazon Kindle (UK)


Reviews from the original UK print edition:Birmingham Sunday Mercury:
Lindsay Townsend's mixture of arias and skullduggery turns into a highly readable thriller.

Yorkshire Post:
Confident debut.

Grimsby Evening Telegraph:
She obviously has a passion for writing. This is a book you will not be able to put down.
 

'Voices in the Dark' now re-issued

My romantic suspense novel 'Voices in the Dark,' first published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1995, is now re-issued as an ebook and is available for all the usual formats (including Kindle) on Smashwords.
Here are the details:
Julia Rochfort, a young opera singer, visits Italy to take part in a competition judged by Roberto Padovano, a world-famous bass. When he and Julia meet and fall in love, the consequences will be devastating. Julia and Roberto are already connected by terrifying events that took place before they were born: the atrocities inflicted on a Tuscan village in 1944 by a torturer known only as 'Scarpia' after the villain in Puccini's opera Tosca. As they uncover the intricate web of betrayal, deception and guilt, the danger grows. For Scarpia and some who share his guilt are still alive - and desperate to keep their past secret for ever.
Smashwords 2011
$3.99

Buy the ebook: Smashwords


Reviews from the original UK print edition:Birmingham Sunday Mercury:Lindsay Townsend's mixture of arias and skullduggery turns into a highly readable thriller.

Yorkshire Post:Confident debut.

Grimsby Evening Telegraph:She obviously has a passion for writing. This is a book you will not be able to put down.

'Palace of the Fountains' now in print

My romantic suspense novel, 'Palace of the Fountains,' is now in print and appearing at Barnes and Noble, Amazon US and Amazon UK.

To read the blurb, excerpt and reviews, please go here.

Beautiful worlds - mainly medieval

There are two 'schools' of historians - optimists and pessimists. The first looks to the positive side of historical events. The latter tends to a more gloomy view. It's the rosy and the grubby views of history.
In creating the past in my stories I tend to the more rosy view of history, apart from where I feel readers need to be shown the 'grubby' side as a contrast, or for high stakes, or to endanger my heroines or heroes. But the worlds I try to create I try to make appealing - and romantic in the uplifting, optimistic sense. I rather celebrate the best in human nature and show the 'best' of past societies and cultures.

So how do I go about it?

First I read. I read children's non fiction books (lots of social history and pictures), general histories, specialist histories and finally original, primary sources where I can - letters, chronicles, laws, coroners' rolls. An amazing amount of detail can be found in the last two. Look at the Sumptuary Laws of the 1300s, aimed at restricting expensive dress - that tells me that everyone in England was dressing as richly as they could. And coroners' rolls give lists of accidents that are both vivid and chilling: a man dies because he fell through his privy floor and drowned in his privy, a child perishes because she falls into the fire. These cases are tragic and horrific but they give clues to the world.

These details are grim, so in my world they would be touched on only briefly, if at all, but I need to know them and use them where appropriate.

Other more positive details I try to slip into my novels - as deftly as possible, so I don't have slabs of research and a fact-mountain in the middle of my story. For these details I find pictures invaluable. The beautiful drawings of Les Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry show ordinary people at work and play and the world in which they do so. It may be an idealized world, but I find it endlessly inspiring.

I also focus on pleasant things - hobbies, past-times, pleasures and show my characters at play. I also show my characters at work and try to make those sections interesting, in that my people have unusual skills - everyone likes to learn new things.

To build the world I start with geography - the land itself. Where a character lives defines how that person survives on the land and what skills the person will have. Is it wooded and fertile, with soft, rolling hills, or bleaker and harsher? Uplands also have their beauties and I research what animals and plants grow in my fictional kingdom, taking care to include those species which were once common but are now rare. I also take care that my animals and plants are appropriate to the period - in the Middle Ages, I can't have a bunch of English villagers munching on potatoes, which weren't introduced from the New World until much later.

After I have 'made' my land I consider the people. What do they look like? Do they have any unusual aspects in their appearance? Do they have any particular habits of movement, speech or dress? What are they clothed in?

Clothes are always fun for a writer, and for a reader. Roman Britain gives me a lot of scope as there were all kinds of luxury fabrics such as silk available to the rich, plus wonderful jewels. Ancient Roman houses - the ones the rich could afford - can also be shown as very beautiful, with wall paintings and under-floor heating.

After the fall of the Roman Empire the wattle and daub houses that replaced the grand villas might sound drab, but certainly in this country it's the dream of many British to live in a thatched cottage and that is what many of the dwellings were, in essence. When I create them for my beautiful medieval worlds, I stress their snug warmth and living heat.

Returning briefly to clothes, the later Middle Ages also has furs and silks and richly dyed woollens, plus an array of hats and jewels and shoes.

To create a beautiful world of the past I also evoke pleasing sounds and scents - the bells ringing the church hours, the twitter of birds, the rattle of drums, the scent of baking bread, the smell of a bluebell wood - and more.

Selection is the key. As I try to evoke the past and create a beautiful past, I select those details that will transport the reader into fields of wild flowers and colorful, vibrant cities.

It is my pleasure to do so, and I hope it is my readers' pleasure to enjoy the results.

Why the Middle Ages fascinate me

I write historical romances set in the ancient world and the Middle Ages, especially the Middle Ages. Why then?

The Middle Ages covers a huge period of time in the western world, from AD 300 - the rise of the Roman emperor Constantine and the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire - until the 14th century. This gives lots of scope.

It was a time when religion played a crucial part in people's lives. The clash of the spiritual and practical was very real. That clash is shown most clearly in the history of the Crusades, when men, women and even children left their homes to travel to the Near East to 'win' the holy city of Jerusalem. The motives of such people were mixed and varied, so that mix of emotions - the profound, the greedy, the opportunistic, the generous - fascinate me as a writer. I touch upon the impact that the Crusades and contact with the Arab world had on men and women in 'A Knight's Vow'.

The Middle Ages was a time very different to our own, with different beliefs: a pig could be put on trial for witchcraft, a man would be made to prove his innocence by clasping a red-hot iron bar, a woman would be told by the church that she was inferior to her husband and yet still be expected to defend his castle. Alchemy and chemistry were one and the same. The contrast in ideas between then and now fascinate me and I like to show them at work in my romances. In 'A Knight's Enchantment' I have a woman alchemist and she uses her skills to help the hero save his brother.
This was the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine's court of love, of Geoffroi de Charny's 'A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry' - a how-to book for knights - and Christine de Pizan's 'City of Ladies' - a defense by a woman writer of her own sex. It was a time of the Viking sagas, of troubadours and the chronicles, of many rich and varied sources of information. It was a time of jousts and tournaments, where ladies gave favours and knights vied for honour - jousts I describe in my 'A Knight's Enchantment' and 'To Touch The Knight'.

But the Black Death came, too, a plague - or series of plagues - that killed almost a third of Europe. The  survivors were traumatized but also had new chances to prosper, something I explore in 'To Touch The Knight'.

The Middle Ages had many decisive battles that changed the course of history - Hastings, Agincourt, Poitiers, Crécy amongst them. I explore the changes the Battle of Hastings made in my 'A Knight's Captive'.

I write romances in which the history serves the hero and heroine and the impact of that history is shown through their lives. The Middle Ages gives me a wonderful backdrop for adventure, high stakes, courtly knights and beastly ones, generous ladies and cruel damsels, peril, good and horrible manners and amazing costumes.
I love the Middle Ages.