Colorado, Saladin, and Roberta Gellis

I am back. I took a few extra days after the HNS convention to visit with a friend and see a little of Colorado. I can now cross Pike’s Peak off my Bucket List; okay, it was never on there, but it should have been, for the views were beyond spectacular. I had a very good time at the conference itself, and I was especially pleased to meet some of my Facebook friends. (Ken, you have a network that M-5 might envy) And of course I’ll have stories about David’s swordplay; I always suspected that man is as dangerous as he is charming!

But those flying tuna-can ordeals are getting worse and worse. More and more those planes resemble cattle cars, and the weather was horrific coming and going. I’ll spare you all the gory travel details—at least until I do a blog about the trip. Speaking of which, I still have not heard from Laurie Spencer, who won the hardcover edition of Sunne and I have no way to contact her. If she does not surface soon, I am going to have to re-do the drawing and pick a new winner, open only to those of you who entered the original drawing. (I’ll give Laurie a paperback copy as a consolation prize.)

I hope all of my American friends and readers are enjoying the holiday. July 4th is a day of great significance on the medieval calendar, too, for it was on this date in 1187 that Saladin destroyed the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem at the battle of Hattin, which is considered by military historians to be one of the most boneheaded blunders in the history of warfare. Thanks to my Israeli friend, Valerie Ben David, I was able to visit Hattin during my trip to Israel last year, and I will be eternally grateful to her for taking us out to the battlefield, which is at the back of beyond. Being able to experience that was such a blessing for a writer soon to fight that battle. I even had my own small miracle; my back pain had flared up during the trip and I was really hurting—until we reached Hattin, where my pain suddenly disappeared, enabling me to climb up the hill, which was rocky enough to have given a mountain goat pause. I still have vivid memories of that afternoon and evening, seeing the Sea of Galilee shimmering like a sapphire jewel on the horizon, exquisite torment to men half-maddened by thirst, and then watching as the sunset splashed the sky with dying colors and the day ebbed away.

Lastly, I have good news for fans of Roberta Gellis. I know many of you have enjoyed her Roselynde Chronicles about a noble fictional family in the 12th century. I also enjoyed her mystery series about Magdalene La Batarde, the shrewd and sympathetic madame of a London whorehouse during the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maude. Roberta has a new one out, published in June, called Chains of Folly. I have it on my Kindle, but I dared not start it yet, or I would not even have unpacked. Books trump real life every time, don’t they?