Sharon Kay Penman's Blog, page 5

The Horns of Hattin

Here is the post that I put on Facebook with a photo of the Horns of Hattin, a major battlefield in The Land Beyond the Sea. Sadly, I cannot share photos here--Goodreads' one drawback. But if you are curious, you can see it on one of my Facebook pages and eventually, I will be adding a photo gallery to my new website and I will be displaying it there, too.

I hope none of you are ill and all we catch is cabin fever. Meanwhile, for those of you who are reading or have read The Land Beyond the Sea (everyone, I hope!), I thought you might like to see what the Horns of Hattin look like. The battlefield is as bleak and barren as it looks in this photo; it helped me greatly to have seen it for myself when it came time to write those chapters—yes, I got to “fight” a battle that lasted two chapters. I will be back later to share a stunningly beautiful video of Italy that I found by chance. Take care, everyone!

Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris and we will always have books

I feel that we’ve established our own little community here, forming friendships that flourish on-line and off-line, too, in many cases. That is a true blessing, but the downside of it is that we now have so many more people to worry about. The Internet truly has made us global citizens as we have Facebook friends scattered around the world. I hope you all are staying safe and coping as well as any of us can in these trying times. My family and I are okay, although under lock-down, but that is a good thing since only three states have more cases of the coronavirus than mine. Please keep posting here when you can; it helps to share our stories and remind ourselves we are all in this together. Since we are avid readers, here is a great article about the various ways people can still access books even under quarantine. I’ll be back later with “good news” stories, for we need them now more than ever.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

How to help

It is awful to feel so helpless, to want to help during this crisis while not knowing the best way to do that. Some things are very obvious. College students can stop flocking to Florida beaches on Spring Break. The governor of Oklahoma can stop urging residents of his state to follow his example and take their families out to dinner and to go grocery shopping. People can fight the understandable impulse to stock up on so many supplies that they leave the grocery shelves bare. Donald J. Trump can stop calling it the “Chinese virus.” Price-gouging should stop. People can stop yelling at those who call them to postpone routine doctors’ appointments; yes, that is really happening. We can donate blood, if we can. And we all can strive for patience and pray for those at ground zero, like the Italians.
We also can try to support our local businesses and give what money we can afford to organizations on the front lines. I have donated to Doctors Without Borders and my community food bank and my favorite animal rescue. I wanted to do more, though, and so I was glad when I found this article listing all the charities and groups battling the coronavirus in numerous ways. I chose Direct Relief, which is trying to provide doctors and nurses and other health care workers with the protective masks and equipment they so desperately need, but there are so many charities to choose from. Here is the link.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...

The coronavirus, my Poisoned Pen event, and a great bargain for Bernard Cornwell fans

Greetings to all on Spaceship Earth as we struggle through a truly global crisis. I am so thankful that we can still congregate in cyberspace; at least we won’t have to feel the terrifying sense of isolation that accompanied other epidemics throughout history. I want to know how people are coping in other countries. Somehow, it helps to learn that Italians are serenading one another from their balconies and dog owners in shut-down countries like France and Spain are still permitted to venture out to walk their dogs and people and companies are doing what they can to help those in need.
I am sure it will be no surprise to hear that the Poisoned Pen has postponed my event at their Scottsdale store on March 29th. I am very happy that it was postponed, not cancelled, and it will be rescheduled once it is safe to fly again. And when that happens, the Poisoned Pen will be taking orders for signed copies of The Land Beyond the Sea for those who do not live within traveling distance.
I hope you all are keeping safe and as calm as we can be when facing such an upheaval of our lives. Since most of us will be housebound for a while, we will have more time to read, and at least that is a good thing. So I am happy to share this news. You know that I am a great fan of Bernard Cornwell’s books, especially his Saxon series. Well, you can now buy the e-book version of The Last Kingdom for only $1.99. This is an excellent opportunity to buy it if you do not already own it, and for new readers, this is the first book in the series, so don’t miss this chance to jump on the Uhtred bandwagon with the rest of us! https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-las...

Templar Silks

I have good news for my fellow lovers of historical fiction. Elizabeth Chadwick’s novel about William Marshal’s odyssey to the Holy Land, Templar Silks, is now available at a bargain price for the e-book. Below is the link to BookBub, which rides through the night like Paul Revere, alerting us that book bargains are coming; it includes the links to all the online sites where you can buy Templar Silks for just $2.99. I am really looking forward to seeing how she deals with some of the same characters and events to be found in The Land Beyond the Sea. We know nothing about William’s pilgrimage, for he never spoke of it, clearly seeing it as a private way to honor his young lord’s memory; as readers of Devil’s Brood will remember, the Young King, begged William as he lay dying to fulfill the crusader’s vow he’d made so carelessly. William’s silence means writers are free to let our imaginations soar, which is always fun. The Marshal had a very small part in my book, appearing briefly in several scenes, but now you have the chance to read about his entire journey through Elizabeth’s eyes. https://www.bookbub.com/books/templar...

An English village's sacrifice

I hope all of my Facebook friends and readers are well and avoiding exposure to the coronavirus. I am enclosing below a link to an article I found helpful, listing the best products for keeping us as germfree as possible’
While a pandemic is always frightening, at least we are still able to communicate easily with one another and for people in past centuries, that comfort was denied them. Their sense of isolation must have been terrifying, for we humans are social creatures, and we instinctively reach out to one another in times of crisis. I hope I do not upset anyone by sharing a story of an English village under siege by the bubonic plague in 1665. History takes up so much of my brain that I naturally look to the past to see how men and women dealt with dangers now facing us. I grew up listening to stories from my mother about the great Flu Epidemic in 1918. I’ve read of cholera epidemics in 19th century Philadelphia and deadly outbreaks of yellow fever, smallpox, measles, and malaria. But because I spend so much of my time in the Middle Ages, I think first of the Black Death when I think of a worldwide plague. Below is the tragic story of English villagers who doomed themselves by quarantining their village, but stopped the plague from spreading to neighboring towns by their self-sacrifice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/histor...
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/health...

What does a writer of historical fiction owe readers--or history?

I will be back later, with some random thoughts about life in the 21st century and plagues of the past. For now, I wanted to post the link below to a wonderful website for history lovers, the History News Network, which is affiliated with George Washington University. I was asked to do an op-ed piece for them and I chose to write about the obligations and responsibilities of writers of historical fiction. It ran yesterday; I am posting their home link so you can explore the site and see all it has to offer. You can access my article by scrolling down the page.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/

My new website

Here is the link to my new website. We have features still to add, including a Photo Gallery and music and information about the monthly book drawings; we also have to add a few features from the old website, such as videos of my past interviews and a wonderful section on castles in my books that was inadvertently omitted. A lot of work went into it; I am lucky enough to have a star in Danielle Campisi, who runs Bella Website Design. I have written new introductions for Sunne, the Angevin books, the Welsh trilogy, and the mysteries, and updated everything else, especially the recommendations for other writers and websites, my Medieval Mishaps, etc. I am very happy with it, hope you all are, too. https://sharonkaypenman.com/

Two birthdays in one week

Not too many people have two birthdays in one week, but I managed it, thanks to my American and British publishers. Today is the official pub. Date for The Land Beyond the Sea in the UK. I’d buy it for the cover alone. 😊 Nice, too, that it is coming out on the birthday of my favorite king, Henry II, who was born on March 5th 1133 in Le Mans. Henry gets mentioned from time to time in my new book as he was King Baldwin’s first cousin and helping to subsidize their kingdom’s defenses as part of his penance for Becket’s murder. More good news—my new website is up and running today. I will add that link later.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Beyond-...

So what happened on March 4th?

Well, The Land Beyond the Sea has been “born” on this side of the Atlantic and will make its appearance tomorrow in UK bookstores and on British kindles. (It is so much fun to pre-order a book and then to have it “magically” pop up on my Kindle weeks or months later.) Meanwhile, I am trying to find all sorts of tasks to do today, anything to avoid going back to working on my income taxes. And for all of you who’ve already finished yours, you do realize you are setting a bad example for your procrastinating brethren?

This date was an important one for several of my characters. Okay, I have never written Frederick Barbarossa into one of my novels, but he is mentioned a lot. And Saladin and King John both get to spend time on my stage, especially John, of course; I’d have hated to have John in my family or to be one of his subjects or vassals, but he is always welcome to swagger into one of my books.

On March 4th. In 1152, Frederick Barbarossa was elected Holy Roman Emperor and cast a formidable shadow across Europe until his unexpected death as he led a German army toward the Holy Land in 1191. On March 4th in 1193, Saladin died of a lingering fever in Damascus at the age of fifty-five, and on March 4, 1215, John took the cross to placate the Pope and win papal support in his struggle with his barons; I don’t doubt that he did it with his fingers crossed, for John was as keen to go on crusade as his father, Henry, had been.