Dear Reader,
Patrick is over four months old now, and I suspect he is now only days away from working out how to jump onto our kitchen bench. Sigh. Once that happens, I will have put him somewhere else in our house when I am cooking. Already, he is making my time in the kitchen difficult by trying to get under my feet. LOL, this winter, I am wearing socks in the house instead of my much warmer UGG boots. Socks makes it easier to feel him at my feet, when I dance around to avoid stepping on him, or tripping over him. I’m beginning to think Patrick is doing it deliberately, and it is true, cats are out to murder their people. Cats make an interesting metaphor for how love comes at a cost. Yes, I have a practising predator on my hands (happy to report he is learning well not to scratch and bite me), but I also have this beautiful kitten who gives me great joy.
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Besides more news about Patrick, I had planned in this newsletter to continue writing about the day when Kristie and I made our way from East Harptree to Lydiard Park, a gorgeous estate where we were fortunate enough to enjoy a private tour. Alas, this week kept me more busy than normal. I completed a submission for a writing retreat next year! Actually, it turned out the push I needed to get me to moving forward with my new book for Pen & Sword Books.
I confess my time in England brought me home with far lower motivation to write this book. All I could think about was the mountain climb I have in front of me, and that to do this climb well means somehow spending many long hours at those important British Libraries. But I am not likely to have the money to return to England for some time to come.
Anyhow - I hope I have a treat for you. My friend Sharon Bennett Connollygave me this piece to share in my newsletter. Over to Sharon!
Released in the UK in June, and due out on 10 September in the US and Australia, my latest book is a sequel to my bestselling debut, Heroines of the Medieval World. As an author of historical non-fiction, it is not often you get the chance to write a sequel. Sequels are for fiction. However, as I wrote in my first book, Heroines of the Medieval World, I knew that the premise behind the book could apply to other eras. So why not the Tudors? As I said in that first book, heroines come in many different forms, and it is no less true for Tudor heroines. They can be found in all areas of Tudor life: from the dutiful wife and daughter to religious devotees, warriors and rulers. What makes them different compared to those of today are the limitations placed on them by those who directed their lives – their fathers, husbands, priests and kings.
The Tudor era, 1485 to 1603, was a period of great religious and political upheaval. The Renaissance had brought about new ideas and methods of study and the advent of the printing press, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, had facilitated the spread of this new learning to the far corners of the globe. However, for girls and women, many things had not changed in a hundred years, and were not likely to change any time soon. Girls were expected to marry for the betterment of their family. Male primogeniture was still the foremost rule of inheritance. And yet, in Tudor times we saw the unimaginable. Not one, but two women sat on the throne of England as queens regnant, Mary I and her sister, Elizabeth I, who is surely one of England’s greatest ever monarchs, male or female. Another woman sat on the Scottish throne, as Mary Queen of Scots. Spain had its own great queen in Isabella I of Castile, while France, though prevented from having a queen regnant through Salic Law, was not to be left out, with Louise of Savoy and the famous – or infamous – Catherine de Medici both wielding great influence over the throne as the mothers of French kings.
The world was changing…
Heroines of the Tudor World focuses on the women who lived through the Renaissance and Reformation, examining the threats and challenges they faced and how they overcame them. These are the women who ruled, the women who founded dynasties, the women who fought for religious freedom, their families and love. These are the women who made a difference, who influenced countries, kings and the Reformation. Studying regents, writers, nuns and queens, and taking in the likes of Elizabeth Barton, Anne Boleyn, Catherine de Medici, Bess of Hardwick and -of course - Elizabeth I, I shine the spotlight on the women who helped to shape Early Modern Europe.
Women have always been an integral part of history, although their stories have often taken a backseat to those of their menfolk. In writing Heroines of the Medieval World and now Heroines of the Tudor World, my aim was not to distort history, or make out the lives and experiences of women to be more than they were. Rather, I want to put the women back into their own stories, to complete the history, so that we have the whole picture, men and women walking side by side as they have done since time immemorial.
Buy link: mybook.to/TudorHeroines
Website: historytheinterestingbits.com
Only 99p99c from 29th July to 4th August.
Buy Link:https://geni.us/715-al-aut-am
Coffee Pot Book Club Excerpts.
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