Joyce DiPastena's Blog, page 40

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with "cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I've borrowed it from LDS Women's Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare at least two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that pageBE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!
I'm adapting the rules slightly. I'll be quoting some random lines from the last chapter I read before I post a teaser. I'm a slow reader, so you may get multiple teasers per book. Here's a teaser from Isabelle Webb: The Pharaoh's Daughter , by N.C. Allen:
Isabelle sat next to her. "During the war, I saw head wounds that resulted in symptoms similar to yours. The doctors would insist that the patients be kept awake for a certain amount of time to be sure . . ." To be sure they wouldn't fall asleep permanently, she thought.
From Isabelle Webb: The Pharaoh's Daughter , 57% finished
If you'd like to share a teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading.

Spring Cleaning Giveaway Hop: Winner

Congratulations to Pain SUX, winner of Recovering Charles  in the Spring Cleaning Giveaway Hop!

Hug a Medievalist Day: Giveaway

I missed this celebration last year, but I'm on top of it this year! I'm holding a giveaway to celebrate Hug a Medievalist Day (March 31), but you have to enter on my Medieval Research with Joyce blog. Click here to celebrate with me this year!

What am I Reading Now?

I'm on my 3rd historical fiction finalist for the 2011 Whitney Award. (And loving reading it on my new iPad!) Here's the back cover blurb for Isabelle Webb: The Pharaoh's Daughter , by N.C. Allen:


After her gripping escapade in India, former Pinkerton spy Isabelle Webb launches a new adventure as she pursues a steamship en route to Egypt carrying two young stowaways: her teenaged ward, Sally Rhodes, and an unlucky girl named Alice Bilbey. Arriving in Suez, Isabelle and her companions recover the girls and unexpectedly encounter Isabelle's own guardian from her youth, Genevieve Montgomery. Isabelle and her friends decide to join up with Genevieve upon discovering that she is funding an expedition to a burial site near Luxor with an entourage of Egyptology experts. Unaware that their nemesis, Thaddeus Sparks, is also in Egypt as part of a jewel-hunting cadre, Isabelle's group joins the expedition under ominous signs: a prophetic warning from a stranger, threats along the Nile River, and birthmarks that burn when the rare Jewel of Zeus is nearby. At the excavation site-a cave rumored to be the tomb of a pharaoh's disgraced daughter-tension builds when several newcomers arrive. And as circumstances shift with the sands, Isabelle finds that some of the royal treasure in the ruthless pharaoh's desert was buried for lethal reasons.


Stop by on Tuesday and I'll share a Tuesday Teaser with you!

"The one I couldn't put down..."

Star Crossed Book Reviews calls Dangerous Favor : "The one I couldn't put down, and which distracted me from all other creative aspects of my life because I just wanted to be in the presence of Mathilde and Ettiene and experience their story over again." Read the rest of the review here.

Summary Sunday

I got off track a couple of days this week, but here are some new sentences from Emilie's story. 


Monday: A cocky smile hovered on his mouth as he flicked something into the air…something that glistened ruby red…before it disappeared again into his broad brown palm. 
Tuesday: His muscles tensed, flexing a warning to the person who thus assaulted him, but the grasp only tightened as a soft voice cautioned, "Keep walking, lad."
Wednesday: Though a smudge of gray brushed the light brown hair at his temples, women more than half his age still vied for the handsome knight's attention.
Thursday: I did actually write on Thursday, but the result was such a mishmash, I couldn't come up with anything good to share with you.
Friday: I didn't write at all on Friday. Shame on me!
Saturday: When last they had met, he had been a gangly boy of seventeen, so tired of scrubbing his curly hair out of his eyes that he had resigned himself to glaring at the world through its tangles.

Thoughts on listening

I came across this thought today and wanted to share it. I'd never thought of listening in this way before, had you?


"Listening is an expression of love. It often requires sacrifice. When we truly listen to others, we often give up what we want to say so they can express themselves."
~ From  Teaching, No Greater Call , p 66

Medieval Word of the Day

In my new medieval romance,  Dangerous Favor , my heroine, Mathilde, grants a favor (hence my title) to my hero, Etienne, before he enters a tournament. What is a favor, you ask?
Favor/Token: Trinkets that ladies awarded to knights to denote him as her "champion" in a tournament; favors/tokens might include handkerchiefs, girdles, tassels, sleeves, gloves, scarves, ribbons, etc; these favors/tokens were worn in the knight's helmet or about his arm and might be kept after the tournament or returned to the lady. 
Here is a picture of a lady tying a favor around a knight's arm.

(God Speed, by Edmund Blair Leighton)

Medieval Word of the Day

Destrier: A knight's war horse 
(From Papy Martial Alias Centurion)

Medieval Word of the Day

Surcote: I previously defined the surcote here, but in addition, it was also a tunic worn over a knight's armor, decorated with the heraldic device of his house 
You can see this kind of surcote in this beautiful painting, The Shadow, by Edmund Blair Leighton.