Catherine Meyrick's Blog, page 37
November 30, 2018
Book Review – The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
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The Lady of the Tower imagines the life of Lucy St John, a descendant of Margaret Beauchamp (maternal grandmother of Henry VII), from 1603 as she emerges from girlhood to 1630 when she was wife of the Keeper of the Tower of London. With the death of Lucy’s mother five years earlier, the family has been dispersed, her sisters to various relatives and her brother John, after studying at Oxford, to Guernsey. Lucy lives at the Battersea manor of her uncle Oliver St John where she endures the dis...
November 23, 2018
An Interview with the Author!
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This is my first ‘real’ interview – Richard Lowe interviews me about Forsaking All Other and writing in general. It is part of his Author Talk series where he interviews a range of authors about their books and their approaches to writing.
Richard’s website Fiction Master Class also contains a wealth of material for people wishing to develop both the craft and business of writing.
November 16, 2018
A Grandish Tour
Although I am nearly a week back from my five week holiday in the northern hemisphere, my writing brain is still not functioning properly. I put it down to the combination of nearly twenty-four hours travelling contrary to the spinning of the earth and a very nasty cold caught in the process. So instead of the book review I had planned, I am inflicting on you that excruciating entertainment of my childhood – the holiday slide show.
November 2, 2018
My Reading – October 2018
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The Watchers. A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I by Stephen Alford
The Spanish ambassador came to St. James’s Palace in Westminster on 9 November 1558, a Wednesday, in time for dinner.
The Lady of the Tower by Elizabeth St John
Her slap shocked me, for until now she dared not strike where a mark might be so visible.
The Heart has its Reasons by Bronwyn Houldsworth
Voices, in the vestibule.
October 26, 2018
Some Family History
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I have ancestors from Ireland, England, Scotland and Canada, most of whom had arrived in Australia by the 1850s, with only a couple of Jenny/Johnny-come-latelys in the late 1860s. I have been obsessively researching them for ten years now after inheriting my parents’ papers in the early 2000s. My father attempted to research his forbears but lacked the diligence of my mother and was inclined to overlook the female lines, so with his family I had to start from scratch. I cannot fault my mothe...
October 12, 2018
‘It is an action like a stratagem in war where man can err but once’ – Choosing a spouse in 16th century England
During the 16th century, as in the centuries both before and after, marriage was a state that most aspired to – it gave both men and women status not only as full adults but, in the case of men, that of householder. Without marriage, women had few opportunities to independently support themselves.
Except for those at the upper levels of society, marriage was not possible until the prospective bride and groom were in a position to maintain a family by their own efforts. For most this meant wai...
October 5, 2018
My Reading – September 2018
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The Beaufort Bride by Judith Arnopp
It is a wild night. Outside the trees are blackened by rain.
Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant
Dawn is a pale bruise rising in the night sky when, from inside the palace, a window is flung open and a face appears, its features distorted by the firelight thrown up from the torches beneath.
Owen by Tony Riches
I tense at the sound of approaching footsteps as I wait to meet my new mistress, the young widow of King Henry V, Queen Catherine of Valois.
September 28, 2018
Book Review – The Beaufort Bride by Judith Arnopp
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Lady Margaret Beaufort, an heiress of the house of Lancaster, was the mother of Henry VII, the first Tudor king of England. She is now generally seen in the popular imagination as an austere scheming woman, politically ruthless and a religious fanatic. Margaret was the daughter and sole heiress of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset. She was married at the age of twelve in 1455 to 24-year-old Edmund Tudor, half-brother to the king, Henry VI. At this time the civil wars later known as the Wa...
September 21, 2018
In My Garden – Birds (Native and Otherwise)
I live near the middle of a city covering an area of nearly 10,000 km2 of suburban sprawl, asphalt roads and footpaths – in the tatty northern suburbs of Melbourne, 200 metres from Bell Street, a major traffic sewer. Yet despite the concrete, asphalt and spindly street trees, nature still makes her presence felt. You only need to turn the corner from Bell Street and walk a few metres along our street and the roar of the traffic recedes.
The Australian standard house block used to be a quart...
September 7, 2018
My Reading – August 2018
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The Trick to Time by Kim de Waal
Five o’clock, Monday morning, there’s a purple light far out at sea.
The King and the Catholics : the fight for rights 1829 by Antonia Fraser
The story begins with violence: in the summer of 1780 London was the scene of the worst riots the city had ever experienced and which were to prove the ‘largest, deadliest and most protracted urban riots in British history’.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson.
I exist!
