Nicola Cornick's Blog, page 49

Carved wooden heads and cursed pearls!

As the new season at Ashdown House approaches I'm reminded of all the reasons why I enjoy working there. One of the main ones is that I always learn fascinating historical facts from our visitors. We get such a huge variety of people through the doors; history buffs, people with a connection to the Craven family, people whose ancestors worked at the house, and experts who have come to see the portrait collection or who are knowledgeable about 17th century architecture, or gardens or both or...

Book Shelf

On my bookshelf at the moment:
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, a big fat riot of a Tudor tapestry with a fascinating anti-hero in Thomas Cromwell. I want to LIVE in this book. Plus I'm learning such a lot as a writer from reading it.
Bought: Destitute Yet Defiant by Sarah Morgan. Now, Sarah is one of my all time favourite authors and this book is superb. It grabbed me from the start and didn't let me go. I'm a total sucker for protector stories and I love this one!

Moon Craving by Lucy Monroe. My...

Historical Hot Spot of the Week!

Today's historical hot spot is the Rufus Stone, deep in the heart of the New Forest in Hampshire. I had the pleasure of a week's holiday in the New Forest last month and it was absolutely wonderful; peaceful, relaxing, the perfect place to unwind and read lots of good books. We visited the Rufus Stone on a frosty morning when no one else was about. The forest has a very strong, historic atmosphere, and never more so than when standing on the spot where one of the least likeable of English...

Academic Crush of the Week!

It was a tricky choice for academic crush of the week this week as there are a couple of great history programmes on the BBC at the moment whose presenters were very much in the running. Eventually I decided to go for Dan Snow for his performance in Empire of the Seas: How The Navy Forged the Modern World on BBC 2. Kudos to the BBC for taking a different approach with this programme. There is no denying that the Beeb make wonderful history programmes but some of them are a bit samey. Looking...

Historical Recipe of the Week

This week's recipe is courtesy of the National Trust. It's a warming winter casserole and it dates from the 14th century. It serves 4, but sadly not 4 peasants because the ingredients would have been too expensive for them to buy. The recipe comes from the cooks of King Richard II who recorded their recipes on a parchment called The Forme of Cury, Cury being Old English for the word cooking.

Casseroled Pigeon with Herbs and Spices
Ingredients: 4 pigeons, 12 large cloves of garlic, 4 teaspoons o...

Loves Me Loves Me Not is Launched!

Yes, today is the day of the paperback launch of Loves Me Loves Me Not ! This "big fat gold book" as Katie Fforde called it, is the Romantic Novelists' Association's 50th anniversary anthology and is packed with short love stories to suit all tastes from Regency to chick lit. Described by Good Housekeeping magazine as "an uplifting anthology of love stories from Britain's leading romance writers," Loves Me Loves Me Not is an indulgent treat and I am very honoured to have a story in the...

A Passion For History Is Reborn!

You might have noticed that the blog has been taking a break. Or you might not!

A Passion For History is now reborn, with a slightly different focus for a new decade. There will be items of historical and writing interest (I won't say trivia but that's what I really mean), historical recipes -pigeon pie, anyone? - places, people and quotations. There will be some book news from me, links to other historical blogs and my current personal favourite feature, Academic Crush of the Week. Come to...

The Heart of Christmas!

Lovely news just as I am packing my bags for the Isle of Mull... The Heart of Christmas has hit the USA Today Bestseller List at #94! This anthology is a threesome (!) <!>with a story from the incomparable Mary Balogh and a debut novella from Courtney Milan as well as my own story A Season for Suitors, which features characters from The Earl's Prize and Wayward Widow. Thank you to all those wonderful people who purchased a copy - and so early for Christmas too! I really appreciate your...

I Know Where I'm Going!

I'm taking a break for a few weeks and my blog is too, so before I go I thought I would post a round up of what has been a very busy and exciting few months!

The Brides of Fortune books are still on sale in the US and Kidnapped, my homage to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel, is in the UK shops. Also on sale in the UK is Loves Me, Loves Me Not, the Romantic Novelists' Association 50th anniversary anthology to which I was very proud to have contributed a Regency novella called "The...

Researching the wip!

Today I went to Wantage to do some research for my current manuscript. The book is set in 1813 and has as its hero an Irish soldier of fortune held in England as a prisoner during the Napoleonic Wars. The story of the French prisoners of war in England has fascinated me since I came across a footnote about them in a book about the Battle of Trafalgar. I hadn't really thought about the fate of prisoners of war in that era; I didn't even know that there were any, let alone that they were...