Ned Hayes's Blog, page 137

"My life is a reading list."

“My life is a reading list.”

- John Irving (via booksandhotchocolate)

Endorsement of forthcoming novel SINFUL FOLK by Ella March...

Endorsement of forthcoming novel SINFUL FOLK by Ella March Chase:

"Brilliant, insightful, unflinching and wise. Master storyteller Ned Hayes has created a fascinating tale of a woman who finds her voice in a brutal world determined to silence her. Mear’s quest on behalf of her child will capture your heart. She demands truth after an unspeakable loss. She wins justice for innocents. Her courageous choices in the face of evil will offer redemption, even to those dismissed as Sinful Folk. This spellbinding mystery will keep readers turning pages until the last sentence. Remarkable.”

       –Ella March Chase, bestselling author of

       The Virgin Queen’s Daughter and Three Maids for a Crown

"On most nights under the winter moon, when we have made our...

"On most nights under the winter moon, when we have made our camp, around us echo faint sounds of that other hidden world – the one of meadow and forest in the night. The melody of whippoorwill, the cry of hunting owl, the scurrying rush of vole and chasing fox. This night, the land is empty. The silence is deep in stark and open heath, the woods carry no sound. Our horses survive on whisps of straw we pull from the cart."
— from the novel Sinful Folk

"It is with surprise that we finally crest the rise. In the...

"It is with surprise that we finally crest the rise. In the failing light, melted snow lies upon a green hillside, white lace draped across a field. Green grass: couvrir d’herbe. We are still in winter, but the hillside ahead is green, tendrils of ice and snow draped around sprigs of grass. Ah, and the smell: a whisper of sweet thyme and faint dog roses."
— from the novel Sinful Folk

"Nell’s secret thyme beds and her mint were deep in the woods,...

"Nell’s secret thyme beds and her mint were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, but it was as a child who gathers flowers in May, setting them in bundles, choosing with caprice, singing to them, naming each plant and leaf with fondness. She danced in the sunlight and the shade. Even watching her a moment, my spirits lifted."

— from the novel Sinful Folk

"A fire is kindled with the new wood they have brought. It...

"A fire is kindled with the new wood they have brought. It crackles merrily, spitting smoke and sparks and warmth out to the room. Draughts of smoke curl through the stabbing shafts of light that come in through the mullioned windows, from the west. Then the draft catches, and the fire blazes hot, light flooding out across one end of the great hall."
— from the novel Sinful Folk 

“As the light bleeds into the sky, the feeling of the...

    “As the light bleeds into the sky, the feeling of the crowd shifts with it. The hunger for this journey jumps back and forth between the villagers, like the heat of a flame passing between them.

     The spirit moves the men, just as it moves the wing’d creatures and rough beasts. I think of our first parents – Adam and Eve – as they staggered away from the known world, thrust out of the garden by an avenging angel.”

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

"How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the..."

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”

- Virginia Woolf, The Waves (via seabois)

"When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy,..."

““When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.””

- Niccolò Machiavelli  [On the reading of books] (via myownliteraryself)

"The room is round as a turrent and full of light. The roof...

"The room is round as a turrent and full of light. The roof curves up to an arch. The fire has a screen, and through narrow metal holes carved in cunning shapes, comes a rosy glow. Rushlights burn on each wall, beside tapestries that cover closed and shuttered windows. It reminds me of Nell’s neat croft—the arch she added to the door, the glowing oilcloth across the holes in her walls. Nell’s house was like a tiny hall of a lady or lord, a woodland nobility."

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK