Review: Women of the Anarchy by Sharon Bennett Connolly

  I'll be honest - even though I studied history right through school and then at University, I never learned about the period in Englis...

Tuesday 27 October 2020

New Release - The Betrayal by Terry Lynn Thomas

 Terry Lynn Thomas has a new release, published today.




Terry has kindly sent me the opening lines and if these don't whet your appetite, then nothing will:


Prologue

Sunday, October 5

When the alarm blared the Sunday financial recap, the woman woke with a start. She didn’t care about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, nor did she care about market volatility. Fumbling, she unplugged the old-fashioned clock radio and tossed it under the bed. Her thoughts, as they often did, went to her lover. She rolled over and pressed her face into his pillow, taking in the scent of him, that strange concoction of vanilla and citrus that made her senses reel.

Rolling over on her back, she took a deep breath, and cradled her belly, thinking of the baby that grew inside her. The positive pregnancy test lay on the table next to her, its vertical pink line a source of unimaginable joy. She snuggled under the duvet as the automatic coffeemaker kicked into gear, filling her apartment with the aroma of the dark roast coffee her lover preferred.

She saw the card on the doormat just as she poured her first cup of coffee.

I’ve rented a beach house for us tonight. I’ll send a key and the address by messenger. Meet you there around ten?

Leaning back against the counter, the woman closed her eyes, anticipating their rendezvous. Dear God, she craved him.

She did not know she had less than fifteen hours to live.


*************************


TERRY LYNN THOMAS grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, which explains her love of foggy beaches and Gothic mysteries. Terry Lynn writes the Sarah Bennett Mysteries, set on the California coast during the 1940s, which feature a misunderstood medium in love with a spy. The Drowned Woman is a recipient of the IndieBRAG Medallion. She also writes the Cat Carlisle Mysteries, set in Britain during World War II. The first book in this series, The Silent Woman, came out in April 2018 and has since become a USA TODAY bestseller. The Family Secret released to critical acclaim in March 2019. When she's not writing, you can find Terry Lynn walking in the woods with her dogs or visiting old cemeteries in search of story ideas.



Tuesday 13 October 2020

The Battle Begins... by Helen Hollick


We're almost on the last leg of our tour and today it's all about the date - 14th October. Over to Helen:

On this day, 14th October 1066, there was a unique, for its time, battle at a place that, then, had no name. The battle raged from around 9a.m. until dusk and was bitter and bloody. Since that day the location has been known by various names – Senlac Hill, the Battle of Hastings, and just Battle, which is the name of the present town which came into existence when Battle Abbey was built by order of the victor, Duke William of Normandy. Was it built to commemorate a victory... or to pay penance for the murder of England’s rightful king? Harold II died defending his kingdom against an arrogant, psychopathic  tyrant who had no right to the English throne. Who invaded England with the intention of taking what he wanted, by force. Unfortunately, he won.

looking across where, it is believed,
one wing of the Battle of Hastings took place
Excerpt from 
Harold the King (UK edition title) / I am the Chosen King (US edition title) 
the story of the events that led to the 1066 Battle of Hastings

Harold reached London late in the evening of the ninth day of October. The news was bad. His brother Leofwine, awaited him at Westminster, was first down the Hall steps into the torch-lit courtyard as the King rode in.
    “Well?” Harold demanded as Leofwine ran up.
   “He has fortified himself within that area of marsh-edged land known as the Hastings Peninsula. It would be difficult to take our army in there    boundaries of marsh and river are as effective as any palisade wall. For the moment he has no lack of supplies, is living off the land, looting all he can and destroying what remains.”
    Harold tossed the reins of his stallion to the nearest servant, unbuckled and removed his war cap as he strode up the wooden steps leading into his Hall. Alditha, his wife, stood at the top, the cup of welcome in her hand. She offered it to him, he took a quick gulp and passed it back, pressing a light but inattentive kiss to her cheek. “I have no time for formal welcome, lass, but would appreciate a tankard of ale and something to eat, cheese will do.” He kissed her a second time, more fondly. “You look tired. Does the child bring discomfort?”
     “No, my lord, the child is well,” Alditha answered him, her hand on the bulge of her belly. But he did not hear, for he was talking again to Leofwine and others of his command who were gathering around the table set beside the eastern wall, already cluttered with maps and parchments. His queen, for want of something to do to help, went to fetch ale and cheese.
     “I have been studying the route south, and the entire Hastings area,” Leofwine said, pointing to one map unrolled and spread, a salt box, tankard, ink pot and wooden fruit bowl anchoring the four persistently curling corners. “From what we have already learned, these villages” – he indicated three – “have been burnt, razed to the ground.”
     “Casualties?” Harold snapped.
    Leofwine cleared his throat, glanced at his own captain of housecarls, knowing Harold would not be pleased at the answer. “Several.”
     “Aye, I would expect the Bastard to butcher the menfolk.”
     “’Tis not just the men. There are bodies of women and children – bairns, some of them still at the breast.” Leofwine swallowed hard, reluctant to continue. The brutality of the battlefield was no stranger to any of the warrior kind, but this, this was sickening. Quietly, his voice hoarse, he said, “Many are only charred remains, they burnt with their houses. Nothing has been left standing. No one left alive. It seems he has not come merely to conquer England, but to destroy everyone and everything in the process.”
    Harold was standing with his palms resting flat on either side of the map, looking at the markings of river, coast, settlement and hill. He set his jaw, said nothing. He dared not. The words that were sticking in his throat would have erupted into fury had he released them. He swallowed down his anger with a gulp of ale from the tankard that Alditha fetched him, his mind turning to campaigning in Brittany... William’s determination to succeed, whatever the cost in human life or suffering. His manic obsession with winning. Too clearly could Harold see in his mind the past, that smouldering ruin of Dinan. The senseless killing of the innocent. Of women and babes. Heard in his ears the screaming as women and their daughters, innocent of men, were violated. Now it was happening to his own; to English people. People he knew – and knew well, for he held estates in that coastal area, had hunted there often as boy and man grown. He had a stud of fine breeding horses at Whatlington, and Crowhurst held a mews with some of the best hawks in the country. His hawksman there was a loyal and good-humoured man, his wife and four daughters all exceptionally pretty. Crowhurst had been one of the places Leofwine had pointed to.


After a while, when his breathing had calmed, Harold asked, “Do we know the extent of his supplies? The Hastings land will not feed him for ever.”
     “With the number of ships he has brought with him, I would say he is capable of withstanding a siege through the winter at least.”
     William could devastate the area in that time, and aye, it would be difficult to flush him out. The Hastings Peninsula might be no stone-built fortress, but it mattered not. A siege was a siege, whatever the defensive circumstances, and Duke William was well versed in siege warfare. Nor, Harold reflected grimly, was he likely to make fatal mistakes through arrogance, as had the Hardrada up there in the north.
     “I say leave him to rot!” That was Gyrth, who had just entered the Hall, stripping off his riding gloves as he did so. Like his elder brother Harold, his beard-stubbled face was grimed with white dust, his clothes sweat-stained, eyes tired. Twice, in a matter of weeks, had they made the journey between London and York in six days. Once in itself was feat enough for any man, but twice? Surely this king deserved the respect and loyalty of his subjects!
     “We shall ensure he cannot get reinforcements; therefore he will run out of food eventually – perhaps his men will not stand firm if we starve them out,” Leofwine suggested.
     Harold pushed his weight from the table, hooked a stool forward, sat. He was so weary. His body felt a dead, limp weight, but he could not afford the luxury of paying mind to it. “We need to consider this carefully,” he said. “I know Duke William. Know some of his vile tactics. He hopes to goad me into hasty action through what he has ordered done to my people in Sussex.”
     “He intends to draw us into the arena, do you think?” Leofwine spoke his thoughts out loud. “Is waiting for us to go in after him, lure us into an ambush?”
     “Or, once he has burnt and plundered everything in sight, will he march out towards the Weald?” a housecarl captain asked, indicating a possible route with a grimed nail. “Could he have designs on Winchester, or Dover?”
     “That we must wait and see.” Harold selected a chunk of soft goat’s cheese and bit into it, not tasting its tangy saltiness. “I do not care to let him run riot in the Weald. With only one narrow road in through dense woodland and impassable marsh he is safe from any land-based attack, but equally, that makes only the one route out for him. Within Hastings, we have him contained, can choose our own time to attack.” He ruffled his hair then brought his hand down over his nose, across his chin. “It is easier to spear a boar while it is trapped. Only a fool would prod such a creature out into the open.”
      “How long do we wait?” Leofwine queried. “A few days, weeks?”
     Harold answered him with a vague shrug. His mind was too tired to think, to make decisions. He forced the drowsiness aside. “We wait as long as we can. We are all tired, many of the men are wounded and are still straggling south – we were too short of horses for us all to ride with haste. My poxed brother’s treachery has placed us at a disadvantage. Let us just hope William is as uncertain what to do next – he cannot have made plans, for he would not have expected us to be occupied in the North.”
     Not for the first time during the dash south did Harold wonder at that. Had William known? What if Tostig had made an ally of Normandy as well as Norway? There was no reason, save that of family honour, to have prevented him from doing so. And honour was a quality the exiled and shamed, now dead, Tostig had been grotesquely lacking. But there was no way, now, to ask him.
      “The fyrd, I assume, is alerted?” Harold asked of Leofwine.
      His brother nodded. “The war horns await your orders for their blowing.”
    All summer had the fyrds of the south and eastern counties been on alert, alternating their patrolling of the coastlines. Now they were to be called out again. They were not obliged to come, for already they had served their compulsory time. Before Stamford Bridge, Harold might have doubted their eagerness, but not now. They would join together under his banner, for no warrior would miss the chance of a good fight, a good victory. Especially when their own homes, lives and families, their freedom, depended upon it.

© Helen Hollick


Helen Hollick is the author of Harold the King (UK edition title) / I am the Chosen King (US edition title) the story of the events that led to the 1066 Battle of Hastings, and one of the authors included in 1066 Turned Upside Down an anthology of short stores exploring the 'what if' alternative versions of the year 1066


Available via Helen’s Amazon AuthorPage





* * *

 Follow the tour - a joint venture with 
Annie Whitehead 
and
 Helen Hollick

 1st October Annie Whitehead - hosted by Helen Hollick
Lady Godiva – Who Was She, and Did She Really?

2nd October Helen Hollick - hosted by Nicola Cornick
Why Do We Do It?

3rd October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Lisl Zlitni
Who Was the Lord of the Mercians?

4th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Tony Riches
Undoing The Facts For The Benefit Of Fiction?
The Writing Desk

5th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Pam Lecky
Murder in Saxon England

6th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Derek Birks
King Arthur? From Roman Britain To Saxon England
7th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Samantha Wilcoxson
Æthelflæd's Daughter 

8th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Cryssa Bazos
An Anthology Of Authors

9th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Elizabeth St John 
Anglo-Saxon Family Connections

10th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Judith Arnopp
Alditha: Wife. Widow. Mother.

11th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Brook Allen
Roman Remains - Did the Saxons Use Them?

12th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Amy Maroney
Emma Of Normandy, Queen Of Anglo-Saxon England – Twice

13th October : Annie Whitehead - hosted by Simon Turney
Penda: Fictional and Historical 'Hero' 

14th October : Helen Hollick - hosted by Annie Whitehead
The Battle Begins...
Reads Writes Reviews

15th October : Annie - Casting Light Upon The Shadow
and HelenLet Us Talk Of Many Things
joint post hosted by both of us 

We hope you will enjoy 'Stepping Back Into Saxon England' 
with us!