It has been some time since I updated my news. I am shocked by this, but time has flown by too quickly and it has been an eventful year which included three weeks in Japan. Earlier in June I was in the US where I visited friends in Nashville. I then flew to Portland, Oregon where I spoke about medieval … Read More
Out of the Shadows: Story of the Book Launch in Pictures.
On the 4th August The Woman in the Shadows was published. The launch party was held in Oxford Waterstones on publication day and was attended by over seventy guests. It was a pleasant evening with sunshine pouring in through the long windows of the second floor restaurant. You can see my publisher, Hazel Cushion, in the first picture. She is … Read More
Summer Books by guest author Brenda Brittan
I welcome Brenda Brittan, Writer from The Greek Mani Writer’s Group to share her favoured summer reads. As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee This delightful sequel to Cider With Rosie, is an ideal summer read when one wants to escape the restrictions of everyday life and visit somewhere different. This is a captivating tale of a … Read More
The Tudor Way of Death
My new novel The Woman in the Shadows opens with the death of Elizabeth Williams’ husband’s death. She has kept his secret for years but now she is free. She is a widow, ready to take on the management of her cloth trade. Then, she meets Thomas Cromwell who helps her to overcome her father’s opposition and that of jealous … Read More
Winter 2017
Enter 2017. This has been an exceptionally busy year so far. We had a very enjoyable Christmas season with family and friends here in our Oxfordshire village. After New Year we decided to snatch a week in our rented Greek Mani house. It was relaxing, a great escape after a hectic Christmas, but it was also bitterly cold despite having … Read More
Footwear in Paintings by ‘Old Masters’.
Recently, I was fortunate to have an opportunity to visit art galleries in Venice, Haarlem and in The Hague. I focussed on the costumes, hats and shoes worn by the figures in the paintings. As I wandered through the galleries’ Medieval and Renaissance sections peering at shoes, I was amazed at how modern they were. Twenty-first century designers could copy … Read More
Autumn 2016
We returned to Greece in September after two major events that kept me in Oxford almost all of this past summer. First of all, The Historical Novel Society Conference which was held in The Maths Institute Oxford over the first weekend of September. Second a visit to The Gladstone Library in mid September. The Conference was a huge success. I … Read More
Women at the Time of Conquest
This year is a special 1066 anniversary. Recently I was the co-ordinator for The Historical Novel Society Conference in Oxford. I also spoke on two panels, one of which was about medieval women. My angle was how life changed for women after the Norman Conquest as well as what happened to the noble Godwin women and other female survivors. A … Read More
May-August 2016
Hello, everyone. Over the past few weeks, we returned from a two month sojourn in the Greek Peloponnese. We drive down in the spring, winding our way through Europe and drive back in the late Autumn. Sadly, the car we use is very old, and, although, volvos are strong, this one has needed many repairs. It is unlikely that it … Read More
Ill-fated Marriages in Literature
I often think that my favourite novels do not depict marriages in a happy light. This, of course, allows the writer to explore tensions and create jeopardy in the story. It permits the writer to be forgiving. I have selected a few of those ill-fated marriages where I think the author does this well- all rate highly amongst my favourite … Read More