Catherine Meyrick's Blog, page 2

My Reading – March to May 2025

The Wing of Night by Brenda Walker
The horsemen sailed at five o’clock when the day was almost over and although they were travelling to do the hard work of fighting England’s enemies it felt like knock-off time on the last day of the harvest: a golden afternoon, full barns and a safe year ahead, all memory of strain and labour and injury gone from the mind.

Clear by Carys Davies
He wished he could swim – the swimming belt felt like a flimsy thing and it had been no comfort to be told not...

Excerpt: Nothing Proved by Janet Wertman

Today I’m delighted to be sharing an excerpt from Janet Wertman’s newly released novel Nothing Proved as part of a blog tour hosted by The Coffee Pot Book Club. Nothing Proved is the first book in Janet’s Regina series explores Elizabeth Tudor’s journey from bastard to queen.

Blurb

Danger lined her path, but destiny led her to glory…

Elizabeth Tudor learned resilience young. Declared illegitimate after the execution of her mother Anne Boleyn, she bore her precarious position with...

Audiobook Excerpt – Apollo’s Raven by Linnea Tanner, narrated by Kristin James

Today I’m delighted to be sharing an excerpt from the audiobook of Linnea Tanner’s gripping novel, Apollo’s Raven as part of a blog tour hosted by The Coffee Pot Book Club. Apollo’s Raven, an epic Celtic tale of forbidden love, mythological adventure, and political intrigue, is narrated by Kristin James.

Blurb

A Celtic warrior princess is torn between her forbidden love for the enemy and duty to her people.

Award-winning Apollo’s Raven sweeps you into an epic Celtic tale of forbi...

Commemoration of the Fallen – 1916

Australia’s first major engagement1 of the Great War was on the Gallipoli Peninsula alongside troops from New Zealand, Britain, France and India. They had spent up to four and a half months training in Egypt before they embarked for Gallipoli. The aim was to assist the British Navy in forcing the Dardanelles Strait and then go on to capture Constantinople.

Unidentified men of the Australian 1st Divisional Signal Company as they are towed towards Anzac Cove at 6 am on 25 April 1915

The Austr...

The O’Connors of Valencia Creek – School Days

With the passing of The Education Act 1872, the colony of Victoria established a system of education that was free, secular and compulsory.1 Children aged between six and fifteen years who lived within two miles by road of a school were required to attend school for at least four hours a day, sixty days in each half year.

Kate O’Connor c.1905
Aged 16

My grandmother, Catherine O’Connor, known as Kate, was born on 11 January 1889 on the O’Connor family farm at Valencia Creek, the third child o...

Excerpt – The Legend of Henry Petch by Sharon Bradshaw

I’m delighted to be sharing an except of Sharon Bradshaw’s latest release, The Legend of Henry Petch, a tale of werewolves, the paranormal, and an obsessive love that endured across the centuries.

Blurb

Ben is more interested in getting his hands on Elias Hepworth’s fortune, along with the benefits of being a hippy in 1970, than heeding the warning left behind by legend and folklore. As he indulges in free love, and takes psychedelic drugs.

He doesn’t believe in ghosts, and can’t...

The Courage of Everyday Lives – Margaret Horigan (1837-1924)

St Mary’s ShandonSt Mary’s baptismal font

Margaret Horgan was born in Cork in 1837 and baptized at St Mary’s Cathedral on 14 May 1837. She was the eldest daughter of Patrick Horgan and Ann Connelly, the second of their six children.

Patrick was a ropemaker for the Royal Navy. He and Ann had married in the same church on 30 May 1834. The family lived at Malt-House Lane, off Peacock Lane (now called Gerald Griffin Avenue and a less avenue-like street I have not seen). Nothing is known ...

Book Review – Now Comes The Raven by Jean M Roberts

Blurb

Settled into her new life in Devon, England, Hannah Heronstone seems to have it all. A beautiful child, a loving husband and a fledgling business. She’s come to terms with who she is, a witch, a healer and cunning woman and has surrounded herself with her sister Midsummer Women. But dark clouds are gathering over Wentworth Manor.
Trouble arises the day she hires a new gardener, Raf. Handsome, manipulative and dangerous, his presence causes friction at work and in her personal life. B...

My Reading – February 2025

The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell
The offer was too good to be true. I knew that from the start.

The Drowned by John Banville
He had lived alone for so long, so far away from the world and its endless swarms of people, that when he saw the strange thing standing at a slight list in the middle of the field below the house, for a second he didn’t know what it was.

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Just after eleven o’clock on a bright spring morning, the sort of day when the su...

Audiobook Excerpt – A Woman’s Lot by Carolyn Hughes

Today I’m absolutely delighted to be sharing an excerpt from Carolyn Hughes’s newly released audiobook of her novel A Woman’s Lot as part of a blog tour hosted by The Coffee Pot Book Club.

Blurb

How can mere women resist the misogyny of men?

1352. In Meonbridge, a resentful peasant rages against Eleanor Titherige’s efforts to build up her flock of sheep. Susanna Miller’s husband, grown melancholy and ill-tempered, succumbs to idle gossip that his wife’s a scold. Agnes Sawyer’s ye...