Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 34

Review of The Scribe's Daughter

After I reminded readers yesterday that the book drawing for Priscilla Royal’s new mystery, The Proud Sinner, is still going on, several people thanked me, saying they had not known about it. So from now until I put up my interview with Margaret George on March 7th, I am going to mention this frequently for the benefit of readers who have not visited my blog or Facebook pages recently.
And for the benefit of those who have not read Stephanie Churchill’s excellent historical fantasy novel, The Scribe’s Daughter, here is an eloquent review of that book by one of her fellow historical fantasy novelists, Mary Anne Yarde. Reviews are very good ways for us to get a sense of what a book is about and to decide if we think it is one we’d like to read. Mary Anne and I agree that The Scribe’s Daughter is definitely in that category!
http://maryanneyarde.blogspot.com/201...

Priscilla Royal Book Giveaway and new book by Margaret George

I have some interesting writer news for everyone today. First of all, I wanted to remind those who have not yet heard about it that Priscilla Royal is doing a book giveaway for her newest medieval mystery, The Proud Sinner, which has intriguing echoes of the famous Agatha Christie mystery, And Then There Were None. There is still time to enter; simply follow this link to my blog and the interview I did with Priscilla recently and post a comment. As easy as that!
http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/?p=670
And I have good news for fans of Margaret George’s wonderful historical novels. Her new one is coming out on March 7th, The Confessions of Young Nero. You can pre-order it on Amazon. I was fortunate enough to have the chance to read an ARC and I was riveted from the first page. It is so rare to discover that a well-known historical figure is actually not as he has been portrayed. Margaret has kindly agreed to do an interview on my blog on the publication date and you’ll be able to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a writer at work. As a writer myself, I naturally find that fascinating! https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Yo...

How many states?

I thought this quiz was fun so I am sharing it here. I have visited 36 states and DC, but I bet many of you can top that. My readers seem to be natural-born travelers!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphi...

University of Leicester free on-line course about England in the time of Richard III

I would like to thank you all again for your expressions of sympathy for the loss of a very dear friend, Valerie LaMont. I know some of you were her Facebook friends, too; Valerie had a gift for friendship and will be greatly missed by so many of us.
I have quite a few friends and readers who live in California, so I’ve been concerned by the accounts of those dangerous storms and flooding in the past week. I hope all of you have been able to stay safe.
Since so many of you share my interest in Richard III, I wanted to pass on the news that the University of Leicester will be offering another free on-line course about Richard and his times. Here is the link which contains all the necessary details. And do check out Medievalists.net if you are not familiar with it; it is one of the very best medieval sites on the web. http://www.medievalists.net/2017/02/f...

New blog up; interview with Priscilla Royal and book giveaway

I want to thank all of you who offered your sympathies after learning of the death of my dear friend, Valerie LaMont. That means so much to me.
I also wanted to let everyone know that I have a new blog up, an interview with Priscilla Royal about her new medieval mystery, The Proud Sinner. As she has done in the past, Priscilla will be doing a book giveaway; anyone who posts a comment on my blog will be eligible for the drawing and the winner will receive a personalized copy of The Proud Sinner from Priscilla. Here is the link. http://sharonkaypenman.com/blog/?p=670

INTERVIEW WITH PRISCILLA ROYAL ABOUT THE PROUD SINNER

Sharon:  I am very pleased to have this chance to interview Priscilla Royal, whose medieval mysteries have long been favorites of mine.  We share many of the same readers, so I know this will be a popular interview.  And Priscilla has generously agreed to do another book giveaway.  To enter, you have only to post an entry on this blog.  The winner will receive a signed copy of The Proud Sinner.  Now before we get started on the new book, Priscilla, you said you have two announcements you are eager to make.

Priscilla:   My first book in the series, Wine of Violence, is being reissued in specially identified trade paperback and e-reader versions on February 3, 2017. The edition is special because one of the finest historical novelists of our time, Sharon Kay Penman, was generous enough to write a new Introduction for it. Am I thrilled? For once, I’m without words. Thank you, Sharon, for taking the time to do this. As I have already told you, I am deeply honored.

Poisoned Pen Press is also publishing a volume of short stories by 35 of their writers to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the press. It is called Bound by Mystery: Celebrating 20 Years of Poisoned Pen Press. It will be out in trade paperback on March 7, 2017. Included is my only short story, The Paternoster Pea. It is Prioress Eleanor’s first case and written long before the series began to see if she and I could get along as character and author. It worked, and we are happily engaged in a long collaboration.

Sharon:  I was delighted when Poisoned Pen asked me to write the Forward for this new edition of Wine of Violence.  I still remember how much I enjoyed my first reading of Wine, for I knew I wanted to keep visiting Tyndal Priory and its inhabitants.  I plan to post the first chapter of Wine of Violence in a later blog so those of you who’ve not yet read it can see for yourselves what you’ve been missing.  But for now, it is the Proud Sinner on center stage, the latest in your medieval mystery series.  Tell us about it.

Priscilla:  As readers, we are often intrigued by where fiction authors get their inspirations. I find my best ideas usually arrive when I am trying least to come up with something.

The Proud Sinner was inspired by watching the 1965 movie version of Dame Agatha Christie’s book retitled And Then There Were None after the original title was thankfully junked. This film, Ten Little Indians, is the one with Fabian. (Yes, him, for those old enough to remember. Awful actor but fun.) The plot involves characters marooned on an island. All are killed. So who was the murderer? Not only did I reread the book, but I watched all movie versions. You can imagine what hard work it was to do that!

Although I am not the clever writer Christie was, and pompously didn’t like her ending, I thought it would be fun to strand a group of querulous abbots, each of whom could easily epitomize one of the seven deadly sins, in one of the worst recorded winters in English history at Tyndal Priory. As they sicken and die, one by one, and Sister Anne is mystified by the causes, the terrified abbots begin to point fingers at each other and grow violent. The ending, however, is not Christie’s. That’s as much as I’ll say!

Sharon:  In each of your books, you have chosen to highlight some aspect of the medieval era.  What is highlighted in The Proud Sinner and why this particular choice?

Priscilla:  After delving into the coin-clipping pogrom against English Jews in Land of Shadows, I needed a short break from murderous bigotry that was beginning to feel a bit too modern. Even though I love drawing characters, I decided to concentrate on a more devious plot as a craft challenge. My editor suggested I highlight medieval food, something which is often assumed to be bland, putrid, and not exactly healthy. For those of us who grew up after WWII, the English diet we knew suffered horribly from rationing and shortages. The medieval diet did not. Meat was usually fresh, often killed the same day as eaten. Spices enhanced meals, as they do today, and were never intended to disguise rotten food. Middle Eastern cuisine, especially the spices like saffron, was brought back by the crusaders. Queen Eleanor of Castile introduced recipes from her native land as well as carpets. Vegetables and fruit were fresh, local, and organic. So I integrated monastic food habits into the book, as well as meals found in inns, and threw in a little lethal element as extra spice.

Sharon:  This is the thirteenth book about Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas, yet you have kept the series fresh. How have you done that?

Priscilla:  Thank you for the compliment! As a reader, I start to get bored with a series when the author seems to be doing so or the voice loses freshness. Of course, I won’t mention names, but there is one writer I still read because the plotting remains excellent, but the main character hasn’t changed in years. Yet readers, and I’m among them, long for one more story even when the authors are so sick of the main characters they want to kill them off. Example is Conon Doyle with Sherlock Holmes who had to bring him back from death because readers demanded it—and he also found it hard to turn down the royalties.

One way I try to keep my series fresh is to take chances. Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas continue to evolve. I give them vacations by highlighting the stories of major secondary characters, a lesson I learned from reading Ian Rankin. On occasion, I introduce new secondaries, like Eleanor’s young maid, and give old secondaries new roles like my prioress’ former maid who married the crowner. Most importantly, from my viewpoint, I still find all my characters as interesting as old friends.

A series must have a natural ending, but characters, pacing, and voice determine that. The Swedish masters, Sjöwall and Wahlöö, saw each of the ten novels in their Beck series as chapters in one larger book, called The Story of a Crime. For my series, I set up a very long arc of novel-chapters. So if a reader wants more of a character or feels a story line is left incomplete, I can pretty much promise that they will get their wish or find the desired resolution in due course.

Sharon:  You have chosen to age your characters normally over the series which means they must change. How have you done this with Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas?

Priscilla:  Each stage in our lives has a different emphasis and strength. Youth may lack experience, but it offers society fresh ideas and direction. Middle age is often centered in family and the drive to succeed in the world. The later years include reflection and perspective. Prioress Eleanor is no longer the young woman in Wine of Violence but an experienced business woman, clever solver of mysteries, and someone who is learning to be a worldly diplomat. She has entered the second stage of her life. Brother Thomas has traveled a different path, but he, too, has entered that second stage. The priory members have become his family and the suffering his children. Yet he still longs to bond with another man. One thing he has learned at Tyndal is that love owns many manifestations. His struggle now is to still find a way to form that loving bond but within a medieval God’s law. Like many in any era, he is beginning to suspect that a rigid Deity is more the product of mortal men’s imagination and the real one might have some flexibility. Aelred of Rievaulx discovered that. Brother Thomas might too.

Sharon:  What are you working on next?

Priscilla:  I’m a bit of a contrarian, often choosing topics less well-known because few others have used them in stories. When I got intrigued with the many military Orders during the crusades, I opted to concentrate on the Hospitallers, not the Templars, and found them much more intriguing. So the next book will take Prioress Eleanor, Brother Thomas and Sister Anne to Minchin-Buckland Preceptory in Somerset, the only priory of Hospitaller nuns in England to which a small commandery of Hospitaller brothers is attached. When the trio arrives, they discover that the prioress they expected to meet has been judged guilty of murder. Although the woman has never contested this verdict against her, she now begs the Prioress of Tyndal to prove her innocence after reading the private letter carried by Eleanor to her from Baron Hugh. What was in the letter than made the condemned woman change her plea? And who did kill the victim, a woman hated by so many that the suspects were all too numerous?

Sharon:  How can readers contact you?

Priscilla:  Should anyone have questions about my books, they can reach me through my website at www.priscillaroyal.com. And I am one of several mystery writers blogging every other Tuesday on The Lady Killers at  www.theladykillers.typepad.com

Thank you so much, Sharon, for inviting me to your blog. You are truly a modern day bard, and I am honored to be one of your interviewees!

Sharon:   It was my pleasure, Priscilla.   I hope you will come back for your next book!

February 17, 2017

White shepherd in need of transportation

I might not be able to post here for a while, as I am trying to cope with the sudden, unexpected death of a dear friend, someone who has been an important part of my life for over thirty years. I know we’ve all been down this wretched road, so I know you all will understand. I will do my best not to fall off the edge of the world, though.
This next message is for all the animal lovers, which are about 99.9% of my readers and Facebook friends. After I adopted a shepherd from Echo White Shepherd Rescue and shared how volunteers drove him up the coast from Florida to his new home with me, some of you then volunteered to drive for Echo, too, when needed. They are now sending a young shepherd named Niko to his new home and are asking for drivers, so here is the information. You can contact Sarabeth or me if you can spare a few hours this weekend.
Niko needs a ride to his forever home on Saturday, February 25th. If you can help, please email me as soon as possible at hpsarabeth@gmail.com. If you can't drive, please share with reliable contacts along the route. I know some of you aren't in the area, but my contacts are thin on the DelMarVa peninsula. If you have contacts there, please share.--Sarabeth
If you haven't driven for Echo Dogs in a while or if your information has changed, please send this information if you can drive:
• Name
• Email
• Cell Phone
• Vehicle Information
• License Plate Number
• Brief physical description
Niko
Moyock, NC – Maspeth, NY
Saturday February 25th
City/State Group is based in: Midwest/East Coast
Website: www.echodogs.org
Reason for Transport: Foster to Adopter
Transport Coordinator: Sarabeth Gordon
Email address: hpsarabeth@gmail.com
Cell Phone: (Sarabeth) 434-996-2899
Echo Dogs – Passenger Information
Passenger(s): Niko
Breed: WGSD
Age: 10 months
Sex: M
Neutered/Spayed? yes
Size/weight: 40 pounds
UTD on shots, including rabies: yes
Overall health? good
Housebroken? yes
Does he get along with other dogs? yes
Does he get along with cats?
Does he get along with children? Good with quiet children
Does he get along with Men? / Women? Yes, but happier with women
Any behavior problems? Submissive, with no aggression
Is a crate optional or mandatory? optional
Items traveling – halter/collar/leash & a small bag of dog food included with his paperwork
Saturday February 18th
Leg 1 Filled! Thank you, Margie!
Moyock, NC – Exmore, VA
83 miles, 1 hr 30 min
Leave 8:00am
Arrive 9:30am
Leg 2 NEEDED!
Exmore VA – Snow Hill MD
55 miles 1 hour 5 minutes
Leave: 9:45 am
Arrive: 10:50 am
Leg 3 NEEDED!
Snow Hill MD – Dover, DE
80 miles, 1 hour 30 min
Leave 11:00 am
Arrive 12:30 pm
Leg 4 NEEDED!
Dover, DE – Woodbury Heights, NJ
76 miles, 1 hr 20 min
Leave 12:45 pm
Arrive 2:05 am
Leg 5 NEEDED!
Woodbury Heights, NJ – East Windsor, NJ
52 miles, 1 hour
Leave 2:15 pm
Arrive 3:15 pm
Leg 6 – Filled! Thank you, Laura!
East Windsor, NJ – Maspeth, NY
65 miles, 1 hr 30 min
Leave 3:30 pm
Arrive 5:00 pm
--
Sarabeth Gordon
hpsarabeth@gmail.com
Pensacola MESS Hall
and
Echo Dogs Volunteer Transport Coordinator

Two utterly different queens

Today’s post is only a day late, so I am making some progress.
On February 13, 1177, Eleanor and Henry’s daughter Joanna, age eleven, wed William de Hauteville and was crowned as Queen of Sicily. It seems as if she and William had a happy marriage, although I doubt that she was thrilled about his harim of Saracen slave-girls. Yes, medieval women were realists when it came to male fidelity, but I suspect Joanna would have seen a harim as a bit much. Certainly “my” Joanna thought so. Joanna has always been a favorite of mine, the daughter most like Eleanor, and I was delighted to give her so much time on center stage in Ransom.
And on February 13, 1542, silly little Catherine Howard became yet another victim of her husband’s monstrous ego. When Henry VIII discovered that she’d had a colorful past prior to their marriage, he was so outraged that he pushed a bill of attainder through Parliament making it treason for an “unchaste” woman to marry the king, then sent Catherine to the Tower, where she was beheaded on this date. In the past, we’ve discussed Jane Grey, who paid with her life for her family’s all-consuming ambition. So did Catherine Howard, although she had none of Jane’s intelligence or education, which makes her pathetic story all the sadder. Marriage to the aging, ailing, hot-tempered Henry was more than punishment enough for any sins of her feckless youth. Despite the legend, though, she did not say that she died the Queen of England but would rather have died the wife of Thomas Culpepper. Those about to be executed in Tudor England did not make defiant gallows speeches, wanting to spare their family from royal retribution. But Catherine really did ask for the block to be brought to her the night before her execution; she wanted to practice kneeling and putting her head upon it so she would be sure to do it correctly come the morning. How pitiful is that?

Worst royal brother ever?

This post is for last week. On February 7th, 1478, George of Clarence was sentenced to death, although it would take Edward another ten days before he could bring himself to have the sentence carried out. I have always believed that George had become mentally ill by the time he died; it is hard to explain his behavior otherwise. I need to get inside the heads of my characters in order to write about them, yes, even Henry Tudor. But visiting Brother George’s brain was like being trapped in a fun-house, filled with those spooky mirrors that distort reality.

Elizabeth of York and another historical quiz

February 11th, 1466 was the birthday of the first child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, known to history as Elizabeth of York. We know her story and it is a sad one. At least from the outside, her marriage to Henry Tudor seems to have turned out better than she probably expected, given the circumstances and the fact that she had the Mother-in-law from Hell. (And I do not say that with Tudor bias, for I think Eleanor of Aquitaine was a Mother-in-law from Hell, too.) What little evidence there is indicates that Bess’s beauty and charm helped thaw Tudor’s hard heart. I like to think so, anyway. She was devoted to her children and I hope they gave her comfort for the loss of her Yorkist family. She had seven, and the sorrow of losing four of them. Even in an age in which childhood was a precarious time, that is more than her share of tragedy. It is interesting to speculate whether her son Henry’s life might have taken a better turn had she lived, for he was said to be devoted to her and cherished her memory. A kind-hearted woman, she would have been an influence for good. But she died on February 11th, 1503, nine days after giving birth to her seventh child, a little girl who died the day before she did. It was her thirty-eighth birthday.
And here is a quiz to find out who your ideal historical date would have been. Mine was George Washington and no, I did not see that coming. But at least I did not get hooked up with a Tudor. https://www.zoo.com/quiz/which-histor...