Nicola Cornick's Blog, page 39

Winners!

It's Friday, which means it's winners day! Congratulations to Pamala, who has won the October Website Contest and a basket of books including a couple of my backlist and titles by Anne Gracie, Miranda Neville and Cara Elliot! Don't miss this month's contest to win a set of the Brides of Fortune trilogy for you and another set as a gift for a person of your choice!

Meanwhile the special Blog Contest to celebrate the launch of One Wicked Sin has been won by Vicky! Vicky wins a beautiful pearl necklace and a set of the Brides of Fortune books. Congratulations! Rebecca wins the bonus prize of a backlist book for being the first to correctly identify the picture as Marcus Gilbert in the role of Justin Vulcan in A Hazard of Hearts. A huge thank you to everyone who suggested their favourite fictional rake. I now have a long "to read" list to catch up with all those bad boy heroes!

I'm loving having the chance to chat with everyone on the blog and if you ever want to email me directly, drop me a line at ncornick(at)madasafish.com. I'm taking a break for a few days now so I'll leave you with a couple of historical snippets I found out this week:

1. Eels were once so common in Britain that they were used as a form of currency. The Domesday Book records hundreds of watermills whose rent was paid in eels or "sticks" as they were known: "1000 sticks from Bottisham in Cambridgeshire."

2. Each full moon of the year has a special name:

January the Old or Yule Moon, February the Wolf, Snow or Hunger Moon, March the Lenten, Storm or Crow Moon, April the Planter's Moon, May the Milk Moon, June the Rose Moon, July the Blood or Thunder Moon, August the Corn Moon, September the Harvest Moon, October the Hunter's Moon, November the Frost Moon and December the Cold Moon. If a season unusually has four full moons, the third is known as the Blue Moon.

Have a wonderful week and don't miss my special blog on Word Wenches next Friday 5th November on the Guy Fawkes Plot!

Nicola x

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Tales from the Haunted Cottage!

A number of people have asked me to write about my ghostly experiences and I can't think of a more appropriate time to do so than in the run up to Halloween. So here, in celebration of all things spooky, are some of my ghostly tales – the true story of my time travels and of my haunted cottage!

I've had quite a number of paranormal experiences in my life, which is odd in a way as I've never gone out looking for ghosts or done anything to attract the paranormal. Half the time I am not even convinced that what I am experiencing can be true. I'm not a sceptic, precisely – all I can say is that there are more things in heaven and earth than I can understand and these experiences are part of that.

One of the most frightening and yet compelling things that ever happened to me was when I went to sleep in my bed and awoke in what appeared to be a hayloft, knowing instinctively that I was a long way away from home in time if not in distance. I could smell the hay and hear the buzz of bees and feel the heat of a summer day. And I knew – just knew – that this was Tudor England, and I was terrified. I'm not sure how long the experience lasted (several minutes, I think) and I didn't move the whole time. All my senses seemed to be unusually alert and sharp. It was extraordinary. Then I felt as though I slipped back into darkness and when I opened my eyes again I was back in my bed in the present time.

The incident literally haunted me for days. I couldn't stop puzzling over it. I didn't tell anyone because I was afraid they would think I was a complete flake. (This is the first time I've ever written about it). Just when I had convinced myself that I had dreamed the entire episode, it happened again – I was sitting in the bath (yes, the bath!) and suddenly found myself transported to the same hayloft for a brief but vivid moment. All the internal walls of my flat vanished and I could see the hay piled up and the arched beams of the open roof above me. It was only later that I discovered that the flat was part of what had been an ancient coaching inn and our part of it was in the stables – yes, you guessed it, the loft where they kept the hay for the horses.

Now, as I say, I have an open mind about the paranormal but I would characterise my husband as an arch-sceptic, a trained scientist who requires everything to be empirically proven. Yet he has seen a ghost or, as he calls it, something that he can't explain, and he would be the first to admit that the house we bought in Somerset was haunted or, as he again puts it, was characterised by some unexplained phenomenon.

 We fell in love with the cottage from the first moment we saw it. It was situated on a path by a stream, it dated from the 17th century and it had roses around the door. When we went to view it we asked the small children who lived there if they liked the house and they replied: "It's cold and there's a ghost!" Their father packed them off to bed and laughed it off and we thought no more about it.

But they were right. Soon after we moved in we became aware of strange crashes and bangs in the night, of the curtains moving violently as though someone was behind them and of footsteps, and doors closing. Our cat would sit staring fixedly at a corner of the room, then turn her head as though she was watching someone walking towards her. On one occasion I was coming downstairs and felt someone brush past me and the treads move under my feet. Our ghost also had a penchant for electrical items; he loved to turn the CD player on and select random tracks and on one famous occasion I had my arms full and couldn't reach the light switch so I said aloud: "If you're here, please could you turn the lights on for me?" All the lights came on.

Finally I got to see him. One evening I was sitting looking out over the little courtyard at the back of the house and I saw the figure of a man crossing the yard and disappearing through a bricked up doorway on the other side. He looked like a cavalier in a floppy white shirt and a hat with a feather. One of my neighbours saw him too, walking along the path behind her house. The cottages post-dated the English Civil War but they had been built at the time of Monmouth's Rebellion in 1685 and our part of Somerset had been right in the middle of the military activity at that time. It was tempting to imagine "my" cavalier had had a connection to the Battle of Sedgemoor.

The cavalier was not the only presence in the house, though, and whilst most were benign there were two occasions on which they were not. One night when my husband was away I suddenly awoke in the knowledge that someone else was in my bedroom. I felt their presence and I felt the bed sink down under their weight as they sat down on it. A moment later I felt their breath on the side on my neck. I was completely petrified, fearing that someone had broken in and was about to attack me. I lay as still as a mouse. Nothing happened. After about ten minutes I managed to move, turned on the light, and there was no one there.

The second time was even more frightening than the first. Again I woke up suddenly, aware that I was not alone in the room. There was a huge weight pressing down on the end of the bed and I knew at once that it was not mortal but that it was terrifyingly powerful and malevolent. It felt as though it was smothering me, slowly and inexorably. I have never sensed such a strong feeling of evil before or since. The only thing I could think to do was to start praying, but the evil was so strong it almost overpowered me. I kept repeating the Lord's Prayer, over and over – it felt as though I was trying to push a rock upstream against a flood but I wouldn't give in. And gradually I could feel the malevolence being pushed back and easing, and then some light crept in and suddenly it had drained away and the room was at peace again. Even now writing about it, it gives me goose bumps to remember what it felt like.

In a strange way it was as though that was the final battle. Gradually the paranormal experiences in the house faded away and months went by without anything happening. When we sold the cottage we were obliged to tell the buyer about the ghosts but he was a Navy captain who said he wasn't afraid of anything and was rather looking forward to any paranormal encounters that came his way. Sometimes I wonder how he got on…

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Wickedly Fun!

Here is a fun contest to celebrate the publication tomorrow of One Wicked Sin, book 2 in my Scandalous Women of the Ton series. Ethan Ryder, hero of One Wicked Sin, has been described as "a bad boy to die for" by Romantic Times magazine and those of you who have read some of my books already will know how much I love writing my rakish heroes! The first rake hero I fell for was the Marquis of Vidal in Georgette Heyer's Devil's Cub (though if I was discussing this with author Sarah Morgan I know she would tell me that The Duke of Avon is a far more dangerous and attractive rake than Vidal!) Which brings me to the contest question: "Which bad boy hero from book or film is your favourite?"

The Prize: 

Inspired by the stunning pearl necklace that Lottie is wearing on the cover of One Wicked Sin, I am offering as the prize a unique necklace made of naturally formed creamy whites, softest mint greens and deepest cranberry pearls. The necklace is created with three strands, each hand-threaded with a superbly co-ordinating combination of pearls, interspersed with the sparkle of rough cut gems including the delicate green of citrine, the golden tones of peridot and the warm purples of Amethyst.

In addition, I am giving away a set of my previous trilogy, The Brides of Fortune!  The contest will run until Friday 29th October. To enter, simply leave a comment on the blog telling me your favourite rake hero! Oh, and there is a bonus prize for identifying the rakish hero in the picture above! As always, Monty the dog will randomly select a winner and I will post that up on Friday evening.

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Taking the Waters

The announcement has just been made that Malvern Water, a brand favoured by the Queen, has reached the end of its history after Coca-Cola said it would cease producing it because the factory could not compete in today's bottled water sector.

The history of Malvern spring water and its uses can be traced back several centuries, pre-dating Richard Banister's Breviary of One Hundred and Thirteen Diseases of the Eyes and Eyelids of 1622. Banister wrote:

"A little more I'll of their curing tell.

How they helped sore eyes with a new found well.

Great speech of Malvern Hills was late reported

Unto which spring people in troops resorted."

 A song reproduced in a book by Dr John Wall and again in the Nash 1778 History of Worcestershire, is said to have been composed by the Malvern parish clerk about the year 1590 and is one of the earliest records of the 'medicinal virtue and purity of these waters'. It is said that Queen Elizabeth I was partial to a glass of Malvern Water.

 In a letter dated 18 July 1759 Benjamin Stillingfleet wrote to Mrs Montague: "I have been at Malvern about twelve days, where, with difficulty, I have got a lodging, the place is so full, nor do I wonder at it, there being some instances of very extraordinary cures, in cases looked on as desperate, even by Dr. Wall, who first brought these waters into vogue…The road is very fine, and made on purpose for the convenience of the drinkers".

 Malvern is in Worcestershire, set amidst very beautiful scenery. With a combination of pure air, pure water and beautiful countryside it became a desirable place to live and its population rose sharply from about 1800 onwards. In order to take advantage of the "water cure" and the visitors that it brought to the town, houses were built along the Worcester Road, as were hotels, the library and the Coburg Baths. In 1842 the hydropathic (water cure) doctors, Dr James Wilson and Dr James Gully, set up practice in the town. It became fashionable to consult them and the famous, the wealthy and the less wealthy tried the Cure, which involved adhering to a prescribed regime of "wrapping, bathing and douching in cold water, drinking the pure spring water, exercising, and strictly following a recommended diet." Famous Victorian patients included Charles Darwin's daughter, who died and is buried at Malvern after the cure did not work for her, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Florence Nightingale, Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Wilberforce and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. However Wilson and Gully were not without critics and Sir Charles Hastings, founder of the British Medical Association, was extremely dismissive of the efficacy of hydropathy and of Dr Gully's methods.

 The sale of bottled water was a natural development of the Water Cure and over the years it provided work for many local people. The oldest bottled water in England comes from the Holy Well in Malvern Wells where bottling was carried out almost continuously from the 1620s to the 1980s.

 So if you are looking for a different setting for story featuring a Regency spa, or if you want to visit an English spa town for research or even to take the water cure yourself, you could try Malvern instead of Bath, Cheltenham or Harrogate!

 Today I am a guest at the Book Lovers Inc site. Come and join me there to talk about your favourite indulgences and for the chance to win a set of the Scandalous Women of the Ton books!

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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One Wicked Sin!

I'm blogging at the Word Wenches today and talking about the research I did for my next book, One Wicked Sin, which is out next week. One Wicked Sin is set against the fascinating background of the Napoleonic prisoners of war in Britain. When Lottie Palliser, my heroine, accepts the offer of Ethan Ryder, Irish renegade and parole prisoner, to become his mistress she just about sets the town of Wantage by the ears with her scandalous behaviour and her London fashions! But what was the real story of the parole prisoners, their escapes and their elopements? Over the next few weeks I'll be talking a lot more here on the blog about the historical background to One Wicked Sin. And check back at the weekend for a special competition offering the chance to win Lottie's pearls! Meanwhile click here for the Word Wench blog and the chance to win a set of the trilogy books!

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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The Greatest Romantic Movies of All Time

Yesterday the Guardian newspaper published a section on the greatest romantic movies of all time. Here is a countdown of their top twenty five:

 25. A Matter of Life and Death 1946
24. The Fabulous Baker Boys 1989
23. Say Anything 1989
22. When Harry Met Sally 1989
21. Harold and Maude 1971
20. Doctor Zhivago 1965
19. Journey to Italy 1954
18. My Night with Maud 1969
17. Lost in Translation 2003
16. Roman Holiday 1953
15. WALL –E 2008
14. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964
13. An Affair to Remember 1957
12. Gone with the Wind 1939
11. All that Heaven Allows 1955
10. Jules and Jim 1962
9. A Room With a View 1985
8. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004
7. Hannah and her Sisters 1986
6. The Apartment 1960
5. In the Mood for Love 2000
4. Breathless 1960
3. Before Sunrise/Before Sunset 1995/2004
2. Casablanca 1942

 Number 1: Brief Encounter 1945

Now I agree that there are some excellent romantic movies on this list. I'm not going to argue with Gone with the Wind, Brief Encounter and Casablanca. And I loved the page at the end of the article that nominates the most mismatched lovers in cinema history: Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones in Entrapment, Jack Black and Kate Winslet in The Holiday, The Donkey and the Dragon in Shrek… (aww, that was cute).

 And of course the list has been complied by film critics so probably their criteria would be (very) different from mine. For example, the article identifies Dirty Dancing as the classic clichéd romance. Into this category it also puts such films as Pretty Woman, Jerry Maguire and any movie based on a Jane Austen novel. So no, we're not on the same page in this at all. Which kind of emphasises for me why lists in the broadsheet newspapers are never going to accord with my favourites, which includes The Abduction Club, All for Love, Pride and Prejudice, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Enchanted and Broken Arrow (that film is so romantic!) They deride the fairy tale elements that I adore. They seem to think that the theme that a good man is hard to find is somehow not "worthy" enough to make a great movie. I think that the best romantic books and films describe truths about the human heart and human emotions and who does that better than Jane Austen? So they can dismiss my choices if they wish but I'll curl up with Pride and Prejudice any day.

 What do you think? What are your favourite romantic movies? And your nominations for the most mismatched lovers?

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Thank you!

It's no secret amongst my closest friends and family that when I was writing the Scandalous Women of the Ton series there were times when I was closer to giving up writing than at any other time in my career, times when I simply couldn't get the stories to come together or I was so worried about getting the books finished that I couldn't write anyway with deadline panic paralysis. Now that the first book, Whisper of Scandal, is on the shelves I still can't quite believe it. But it must be true because I have had so many lovely emails and comments and reviews from readers telling me how much they have enjoyed the book. Today is my wedding anniversary and as I am feeling particularly happy and thankful for all good things it seems the perfect day to say thank YOU to everyone who has supported my writing over the years and made it all worthwhile. I appreciate it very, very much!

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Historical Fact of the Week!

Here's a historical factoid I heard on Michael Wood's fantastic programme The Story of England. I liked it very much and wanted to share:

On 28th March 1797 eighty six oxen were used to pull a windmill from Belle Vue Fields in Brighton two miles uphill on a sled to the nearby village of Preston. It was re-erected there and renamed Preston Mill. The mill, previously known as West Mill, had stood in Belle Vue fields since 1744. It featured on Lambert's View of Brighthelmstone which is dated 1765. It stood at Preston until 1881, when it was demolished. Belle Vue Fields, named originally for an ancient mansion called Belle Vue House, was a field that ran down to the seafront and was a popular site for travelling shows, fairs, military parades and other gatherings. It was renamed Regency Square in 1818 when it was developed by Joshua Flesher Hanson as part of the expansion of Brighton in the early nineteenth century. More information from the Regency Square Area Society here.

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Top Tens!

Fabulous Austen-inspired author Victoria Connelly recently asked me to complete a "Writer Top Ten" for her fun website feature on what authors watch on TV, read in the bath etc. This proved to be surprisingly tricky. How on earth do you narrow down your all time favourites to one top book, film or actor? How to choose between Devil's Cub, Persuasion, Frenchman's Creek and Mist over Pendle in the books category? Or Clive Owen, Daniel Craig and Henry Cavill? Can't I have all of them? As for films, would it be The Abduction Club or All for Love? Time Team on the TV? My answers are here but I'd like to know yours – and whether you have as much trouble choosing your Top Ten as I did! Here are the categories but add whatever you like!  Book, film, TV programme, actor, song, quote, holiday destination, animal, dessert, pastime! (The photo above is of the house at Frenchman's Creek, Helford, in Cornwall.  Daphne Du Maurier used it and you can actually stay there, as we did a few years ago!)

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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Hoydens and Firebrands!

Today I am blogging at the fabulous Hoydens and Firebrands blog. I'm writing about my passion for William, 1st Earl of Craven and Ashdown House, and his passion for the cause of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Winter Queen. Was there a secret marriage between the handsome Earl and the beautiful and charismatic widowed Queen? You decide!

©2010 Nicola Cornick. All Rights Reserved.

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