Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 100

Where are my dragons?

So far I have not been enthralled with 2014. Loss of internet, phone, and cable service on New Year’s day, plus dead cell phone battery. Hunt for a public phone; better odds of finding a unicorn. Furnace breaking down on coldest day since 1878. Holly (suicidal spaniel) gobbling down my vitamins while I am talking to the furnace tech guy, also eating medication that can be toxic to dogs, resulting in call to Pet Poison Hotline and emergency vet visit. Dog is fine, bank account still bleeding. Furnace stops working again over the weekend. Electricity goes out this morning, discover cell phone battery is dead again, too. Still waiting for car charger for cell phone to arrive. Furnace tech is sent on to next job when there is no response to their phone call. I really wish there was someone or something I could blame for all this! In the past, I’d have pinned it on Demon Spawn giving off his usual evil vibes, but he went to computer hell last year.
Anyway, here is something for my fellow Game of Thrones fans. The next season seems so far away, doesn’t it? http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vid...

The Henry II defense

Many of you may have heard of the current woes of New Jersey’s governor. He is mired in a political scandal that has been called---naturally—Bridgegate. His deputy chief of staff arranged for the closure of all but one lane of the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan, thus creating horrific traffic chaos, greatly inconveniencing thousands, damaging local businesses, and even endangering the public by slowing down first responders; one woman died waiting for an ambulance, although it has not been established that the delay was the direct cause of her death. The apparent motivation for this sabotage was political payback—to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, supposedly because he’d not endorsed Christie for re-election. Christie fired the aide and swears he had no knowledge of any of this. Barring the discovery of a smoking gun, I’m inclined to accept his denial. Whatever his other failings, no one has ever called him stupid and this was an incredibly stupid thing to do. But there is no doubt that Christie’s presidential hopes have been damaged by this, with his rivals—both Republican and Democrat—gleefully anticipating political commercials about Bridgegate. Comedians are having a field day, too. All of this exposition is to explain the following joke, sent to me by a friend, which I absolutely had to share. As soon as you read it, you’ll understand why:

Is there such a thing as a Henry II defense? “I didn’t mean they should actually rid me of this meddlesome mayor!”

The rare Australian dragon

Yet another reason to love Australia!
http://www.today.com/moms/girl-7-asks...

And the Winner is....

I finally have a new blog up. In addition to announcing the winners of the book giveaway, I also include the likely book tour itinerary for March.
Here is the link.
http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/?p=434

AND THE WINNER IS…..

Priscilla Royal and I are happy to announce that the first winner of the book giveaway for her newest mystery, Covenant with Hell, is Pat Yarbrough.   Priscilla is a generous soul and she decided to offer a second book since there were so many entrants.  The second lucky winner is Libby.    If you e-mail Priscilla at tynprior@aol.com, she will make the arrangements to mail your signed copies of Covenant.    Here is a brief message from Priscilla:

“I am amazed and thrilled by the response to the drawing!  Thank you all for so many kind words. I hope Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas will bring some hours of reading pleasure.  And thank you, Sharon, for inviting me to your blog and all the years of reading delight you have given me with your wonderful books.”

*        *        *        *       *

I hope all of you who were under siege by the polar vortex have thawed out by now.   It was dramatic, inconvenient, and sometimes scary, sadly taking the lives of at least 15 people.  Naturally my furnace decided to stop working on the coldest day since 1878.    Thankfully, a furnace tech, my new knight in shining armor, was able to get it going again, and Wednesday he returned to make more permanent repairs.   While I was talking to him, Holly seized her chance to eat my vitamins, momentarily left untended.  Unfortunately, they included a medication that can be toxic to dogs.   So I had to spend time with the Pet Poison Hotline and they recommended I take Holly to my vet for monitoring because there was the risk of neurological or respiratory problems and seizures.    I am happy to report that Holly is just fine, the only damage being done to my frayed nerves and bank account.   She did not get away scot free, though, missing lunch, and for Holly, a missed meal falls into the “cruel and unusual punishment” category.

I have some exciting news, at least to me.   I will be doing an interview on my blog with Bernard Cornwell in the near future; his latest book in his wonderful Saxon series, The Pagan Lord, has just been published in the US on January 6th; it was already out in the UK and Down Under.    I highly recommend it, of course!

Lastly, I have more information about the March book tour for A King’s Ransom.   My publicist is still working on the itinerary, but at the moment, it looks as if I will definitely be going to Chester County Books in PA, the Barnes and Noble in Princeton, NJ, Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, AZ, Murder by the Book in Houston, TX, and Nicola’s in Ann Arbor, MI.  There is also a good chance that I will be making appearances in Seattle, Portland, and the Bay Area before flying to Tucson to attend their Festival of Books on March 15-16th.     I will put up details as I learn them.    I have enjoyed meeting Facebook friends on these tours and I am looking forward to this very much.

January 10. 2014

The Pagan Lord

I hope everyone in the path of the polar vortex is hunkering down and keeping warm. My furnace picked yesterday, the coldest day since 1878, to stop working, but this sad saga had a happy ending—heat! When my mother was a little girl on a farm in Kentucky, they’d wake up in the morning sometimes to find snow on their beds, it having filtered through the cracks in the roof. They’d then have to grab their clothes and dash down to the kitchen to get dressed before the wood-burning stove, the only source of heat. Sounds medieval, doesn’t it?
I want to remind my fellow Bernard Cornwell fans that his newest in the Saxon series, The Pagan Lord, is now available in the US; it was, of course, published in the UK back in September. And I hope to interview him on my blog in the near future! http://www.amazon.com/Pagan-Lord-Saxo...

January 6th in history

January 6th is a busy day in history. Harold Godwinson was crowned on this date in 1066, but his reign was to be short-lived; in October, he was slain at the battle of Hastings. On this date in 1169, the French king and the papal legate coaxed Henry and Thomas Becket to meet. Here is a paragraph from that scene on p. 390-391 of Time and Chance.
* * *
The Bishop of Sens had just come into view, and as the crowd parted, Henry saw Thomas Becket. This was their first meeting in more than four years and his immediate, unbidden thought was that those years had not been kind to Thomas. Becket had always been of slender build; now he was gaunt. Fair-skinned by nature, his was now the sickly pallor of the ailing. Henry suddenly believed those stories he’d heard of Becket’s deprivations and denials, no longer dismissed them as self-promotion. The archbishop’s eyes were hollowed, his dark hair well salted with silver, and his black beard had gone white. Only his height was as Henry had remembered. His throat tightened unexpectedly; could this be the man who’d once playfully tussled with him over a crimson cloak?
* * *
But their reconciliation ended in acrimony when Becket again insisted upon doing homage to the English king “saving the honor of God.” Even the French king sided with Henry at Montmirail, asking him reproachfully if he wished to be more than a saint. No, but I do think he had yearnings, conscious or not, for martyrdom.
On January 6, 1367, the future King Richard II was born. And in 1540, Henry VIII wed Anne of Cleves; their marriage would end in six months, probably to their mutual relief. We know that Henry was displeased with Anne and it is likely that she did not find him attractive, either, for the days when he’d been the handsomest prince in Europe were decades past; given Henry’s sordid matrimonial history, Anne must have been thankful that he was resorting to an annulment and not the axe.

Random acts of kindness

I am sorry I did not get to post yesterday, but 2014 got off to a bumpy start with no phone, cable, or internet service. Naturally I snatched up my cell phone, only to discover that it was not working, too. My neighbors weren’t home, so it was out into the cold in search of a public phone, which is only slightly less elusive than the unicorn. Fortunately, the kind souls at my local WaWa store allowed me to use their phone to call my server. It was a local outage and eventually my contact with the real world was resumed, but for hours, I felt as if I were living like a medieval recluse.
Many of you are, like me, in the path of that nasty snowstorm plowing east, along with a blast of bitterly cold air. So stay safe and warm, and may none of my fellow football fans lose power during the playoff games.
Now, to get the new year off to a warm and cozy start, here is a story about random acts of kindness; we can never have too much of those, right? http://www.care2.com/causes/10-random...
PS Still time to post a comment on my current blog to be eligible for the free, signed copy of Priscilla Royal’s newest medieval mystery, Covenant with Hell.

Book giveaway and the new year

I want to remind everyone that there is only a little time left to enter the drawing for a free, signed copy of Priscilla Royal’s latest mystery, Covenant with Hell. Anyone who posts a comment on my current blog, an interview with Priscilla, is eligible. Here is the link.
http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/?p=432 Since I love history in general, medieval history in particular, and good writing in any guise, I really enjoy Priscilla’s series, one that is firmly rooted in thirteenth century England. I expect to have a new blog up by week’s end, so time is running out!
I want to wish you all a safe New Year’s Eve and a good start to the new year. Some wonderful things happened for me in 2013, but I am still glad to see it go, for I lost two dear friends, Margaret Frazer and Lowell LaMont. I hope that 2014 will be a better year for us all.

A brutal December battle

December 30th was a dreadful day for the House of York, for on this date in 1460, the Duke of York rashly ventured out from Sandal Castle to confront a Lancastrian force that lured him into a trap. The result was a devastating defeat for the Yorkists. The duke died on the field, the Earl of Salisbury was executed after the battle, and the most controversial killing occurred on Wakefield Bridge when the duke’s seventeen year old son, Edmund, was slain by Lord Clifford. Their heads were placed on York’s Micklegate Bar, but the Lancastrians did not have long to savor their triumph. Edward of York soon won a great victory against them at Towton, said to be the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, a victory that secured the crown for the young commander, who was still a month shy of his nineteenth birthday on that snowy March day. Think about that; what an amazing accomplishment for someone so young. Military historians are constantly praising battle commanders like the Lionheart, Edward I, and Henry V. But Edward of York was a brilliant general, too, and does not always get enough credit for that.