The Writing Desk

Book Launch Spotlight: What Love E'er Meant (Regina Book 2) by Janet Wertman

2026-09-07T08:00:38.769+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon U S

A new queen must prove she deserves the throne God gave her, while the path everyone insists will secure it might cost her everything

Against all odds, Elizabeth Tudor has become Queen of England. Determined to fulfill what she sees as a divine responsibility, she sets out to heal a country ravaged by religious discord, war, and debt – and vindicate the legacy of Anne Boleyn, the mother who did not deserve her fate.

But Elizabeth’s crown is not fully secure: to the Catholic world, her cousin Mary Stuart is the rightful Queen of England and there are rumblings to put her there. Shoring up defenses requires that Elizabeth challenge France’s control of Scotland and Spain’s dominance on the seas, as well as calm internal strife. Above the din of menace, one question dominates all others: who will she marry?

William Cecil, her trusted Secretary of State, urges her to secure an alliance through a strategic match. Robert Dudley, the love of her life, pressures her to choose him. And Mary herself presents a cautionary tale. In the end, Elizabeth chooses not as a woman but as a queen, and learns the sobering truth of sovereignty: to rule is to stand alone.

What Love E’er Meant, the searing second volume in the

Regina Trilogy, captures a young queen’s struggle to balance love and power, duty and desire…and the profound cost of

choosing crown over heart.

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About the Author

By day, Janet Wertman is a freelance grantwriter for impactful nonprofits. By night, she writes critically acclaimed, character-driven historical fiction – indulging a passion for the Tudor era she had harbored since she was eight years old and her parents let her stay up late to watch The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R. Her Seymour Saga trilogy (Jane the Quene, The Path to Somerset, The Boy King) took her deep into one of the era’s central families – and now her follow-up Regina series explores Elizabeth’s journey from bastard to icon. Find out more from www.janetwertman.com and follow Janet on Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky @janetwertman.bsky.social

Special Guest Post by Jacquie Rogers, Author of the Quintus Valerius Roman Mysteries

2026-09-06T17:06:47.945+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

224 AD: Imperial Investigator Quintus Valerius is summoned from Rome to Britannia by his old companion-in-arms, Governor Gaius Trebonius. Trebonius wants Quintus to investigate fraud at the silver mines he is overseeing. But on his journey to Somerset in the south-west of the isle, Quintus hears rumours of a Druid uprising. And when he encounters his scorned ex-lover, he suspects she may have something to do with it. When Quintus finally reaches the mines, he finds himself under attack. He realises a dark conspiracy could be behind the fraud. And the stakes are raised when a potential witness is murdered.

Thank you, Tony, for inviting me back to your blog. I was last here in 2023, when I wrote about the history behind my third Roman mystery, The Loyal Centurion. Since then I’ve moved to Sapere Books, who have signed me up with enough relaunches and new books to keep me busy for a long time! Suffice it to say that my Quintus Valerius mysteries are coming out this autumn and winter, with brilliant new covers and add-ons like maps, cast lists (helpful with all those Latin names), place names, glossaries and reader notes. The Governor’s Man is on pre-order now, followed by The Carnelian Phoenix on 20 November. The Loyal Centurion follows in the New Year.

Since last appearing here, I’ve written a new mystery for Quintus and his fellow sleuths set in Aquae Sulis, the Roman spa resort and religious centre of Bath. The Bath Curse came out of my enduring fascination with the famous lead curse tablets found in the Sacred Spring at Bath. They were dedicated to the British-Roman goddess Sulis Minerva, renowned for her healing, wisdom and help in a just war.

Gilt-bronze head of the goddess Sulis Minerva,

a monumental artifact from Roman Britain

Anyone wanting justice, or simply with a major grudge, could come here to make a sacrifice to the goddess, and have their particular beef inscribed by a clerk onto a thin lead sheet. The justice sought would take the form of retribution dealt out by the all-powerful Sulis Minerva. The curse tablets were folded or rolled up, and thrown into the steaming sacred spring.

Roman curse tablet (defixio) discovered at the King's Bath

in Bath, England (Aquae Sulis).

Poor Docilianus – I doubt he ever got his warm wool coat back, despite his fervent prayers. But Aquae Sulis wasn’t just about healing and worship. By the Severan period (AD 220s, when my books are set), it was a popular spa resort not unlike the Bath of Jane Austen’s day. People came to Bath from all over the western Roman Empire, to holiday, relax, gossip, drink the waters, meet a potential partner, even gamble. If you’ve visited Bath yourself, you’ll know how splendid the Great Bath is. It’s unique in Britain both for its grand size and the natural flow of waters, heated by geothermal forces to a steady 46 degrees C, and pumping out over a million litres a day.

We don’t know much about the visitors who travelled here to take the highly-mineralised waters, but I imagine that the steady influx of wealthy visitors to this tiny city might tempt the unscrupulous – and the downright criminal – to prey on them. A sort of Las Vegas-cum-Monte Carlo, perhaps?

As well as The Bath Curse (to be published in 2027), I’ve begun a new companion series. Same time period as the Quintus Valerius books (early third century), still in Roman Britannia, but the Otto Cornelius series has action centred around the wonderful city of Viroconium Cornoviorum. Nowadays Wroxeter Roman city lies under fields around seven miles south-east of Shrewsbury, where English Heritage care for this fourth-largest of Britain’s Roman cities. It was built as the capital for the Cornovii tribe, whose lands stretched from Staffs to the Mersey, and well into modern Wales. That makes it the most north-westerly of Rome’s cities – and what a city it was!

We are very fortunate that Viroconium survived in some form or another long after the end of the Roman period. It is thought that a possible plague drove the remaining inhabitants away to a better defended site – hence mediaeval Shrewsbury. The old city remained untouched, under a cover of soil and grass. Eventually Victorian antiquaries took an interest in the astonishing remains of what we now know to be a large gym hall, or baths basilica. Since then, modern techniques of geophysics and aerial photography have revealed in detail the layout of a wealthy, bustling city of some 15 000 people, spread over 73 hectares.

Even this remote city would have had a mix of people from many parts of the Roman empire. I’ve taken advantage of this, to create as my main character a German-Romano-British officer, Prefect Otto Cornelius, pushed into early retirement from the XXth legion in Chester. Needless to say, these also being mystery novels, he soon stumbles across murder and theft. The Silver Mirror and The Amber Goddess are both written, while The Salt Road is under way. All to be published in 2027/2028.

Artist’s impression of the baths complex at Wroxeter

Last year I finally travelled to Pompeii and Herculaneum. I know, it’s shameful being a Roman historical novelist who’s never been to the best-preserved Roman towns of the lot.

I came, I saw, I was vanquished. It was a very emotional week for me. When I’d finished crying, I wrote my own story of the people found by archaeologists on the beach at Herculaneum, waiting in vain for rescue by Pliny’s navy.

And now that’s been published too. I’ve situated the story as a prequel to the Quintus Valerius series, an introductory novelette featuring a noble ancestor of Quintus. Tribune Flavius Valerius was definitely in the wrong place, at the wrong time. My homage to those left on the beach at Herculaneum is titled after a quote from the only eye-witness account of the Vesuvian eruption of AD 79: A Night Blacker and Darker. It’s available now, in paperback and for Kindle.

Thank you, Tony. I hope you’ll invite me back to your wonderful blog next year, when I’ll have more Roman history to share.

Jacquie Rogers

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About the Author

Jacquie Rogers was a child £10 Pom, moving back to the UK nicely in time for the three-day week. She had careers in advertising and university teaching before turning to writing. Since then, she’s written four novels for her Quintus Valerius Roman mysteries, and another two so far in her forthcoming companion series, the Otto Cornelius Roman mysteries, set in and around Wroxeter Roman city. Her short stories have been published in several countries. In 2020 and 2021 she was Runner Up in the Lincoln Book Festival flash fiction competitions. Jacquie lives in Malvern, where she walks the hills with her husband and their dog, Peggy. Jacquie loves travelling Europe by motorbike, and discussing politics, travel and books. She spends a lot of time in cafés and pubs. Find out more at Jacquie’s Substack, Writing Roman Britain, where you can sign up for free to her monthly newsletters. For social media, book links and author events, go to https://linktr.ee/jacquierogers

Special Guest Post by Anna Belfrage, Author of The Prodigal Son (The Graham Saga Book 3)

2026-09-05T05:27:28.191+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Safely returned from an involuntary stay in Virginia, Matthew Graham finds the Scottish Lowlands torn asunder by religious strife. His Restored Majesty, Charles II, requires all his subjects to swear fealty to him and the Church of England, riding roughshod over any opposition.

A masked pimpernel – of Alexander Peden, devout preacher and religious rebel

One of the joys of writing historical fiction is making the acquaintance of the somewhat lesser known people who once played important roles in the events of the past. One such person is Alexander Peden, the charismatic Scottish Kirk minister who set large parts of Ayrshire ablaze with his determined refusal to abandon his faith. He plays a pivotal role in my book The Prodigal Son and inspires my male hero Matthew Graham to risk life and limb in his steadfast support of the Covenanter cause.

This does not endear Alexander Peden to Matthew’s time traveller wife, Alex, who spends far too much time with her heart in her mouth while Matthew is off playing the hero. Should he be caught, they’d likely hang him—or sell the entire Graham family into bondage in the new world. Alex does not understand how anyone can risk so much for religion. Matthew cannot comprehend how she cannot see that some things are worth dying for. Let’s just say the Graham family is at an impasse . . .

While Matthew is a purely fictional character, anyone familiar with the history of the Covenanters and their persecution in the late 17th century will, at some point or another, have stumbled over Mr Peden.

To me, Sandy Peden – oops, Alexander Peden (Sandy to friends only, and I’m not quite sure I qualify) – came alive the day I stood in the National Museum of Scotland and peered at his mask.

17th-century disguise mask and wig worn by Alexander Peden,

a Scottish religious rebel, on display at the

National Museum of Scotland

I realise that the purpose of the mask was to disguise him, thereby leading me to assume he didn’t at all look like it. Still, when studying the mask I had my first clear image of Sandy – a slight man who burned with restless energy, whose eyes glowed with passion when he spoke about God. A brave man, a stubborn man – and a man convinced that his faith and his beliefs were the right ones.

“Of course they are,” he says, sounding aggravated.

“You think?” I snort. “All that stuff about predestination, about the relative unimportance of women…”

“Pah! Just shows how little you know! Now, I am willing to take on the task of educating you – however much of a Sisyphus task that might be.”

I ignore the little man. I’m not uneducated, thank you very much.

“Aye you are,” he says. “You have studied such varied subjects but how much of your academic efforts have you expended on God? On the Holy Writ?” He sinks those luminous grey eyes of his into mine. “No, I thought as much,” he says before fading away.

Alexander Peden was born in 1626 and educated at Glasgow University. In 1662 he was ejected from his parish New Luce—the restored king, Charles II, and his advisors were determined to supplant the Scottish Kirk with the Church of England. Peden spent the rest of his life as a religious rebel, holding secret services out on the moors of Ayrshire to fortify his ever-growing flock of die-hard Presbyterians.

The powers that were searched high and low for him, but Sandy knew how to blend into the landscape—ably helped by my Matthew—and to further confuse his pursuers he wore the mask mentioned above. It is said that on several occasions he evaded capture by praying to God for deliverance – which God duly supplied through the opportune appearance of a thick fog or clouds to cover the moon.

“God looks to his own,” Sandy puts in, scratching at his balding head. He smells, his dark coat is frayed around the cuffs and has a long tear down the back. He looks tired and dirty, and he keeps on coughing. He frowns at my inspection. “It’s not a life of comfort to be constantly on the run.”

“So why not give up?”

“Give up?” Sandy raises fair, bushy brows. “I’m outlawed. They’d hang me off the first gallows they could find.”

No matter divine intervention, Sandy’s luck eventually ran out. In 1673 he was captured and spent the coming five years on the Bass Rock. After this, he was to be deported to America and together with 60 others he was set aboard a ship to London where they were to be transferred to another, larger vessel. However, the captain of this vessel was so incensed when Sandy informed him why they were being deported that he released them, leaving them on the London docks.

“A good man,” Sandy laughs. “He would no more carry me off against my will than he would kill his mother.” He scratches at his chest. “Lice,” he mutters. “Courtesy of His Majesty’s tender care, I reckon.”

“Or of living rough.”

“That too.” He purses his lips. “Sometimes…”

“Sometimes what?”

Sandy shakes his head. “Nowt,” he says, smiling ruefully.

“Go on; sometimes…”

“… I long for a bed – a warm home, a family…” He stares off in the distance. “God has ordained and I must obey.”

After the encounter with the godly captain, Sandy and his companions walked all the way home. For the remaining years of his life, Sandy divided his time between Scotland and Ireland, always on the run, always holding to his faith and preaching the word of God as he knew it.

Alexander Peden died in 1685 – in a bed, as he’d prophesised.

“Of course,” Sandy says. “God allowed me one last night of comfortable sleep.”

“That was nice of him.” Seems the least he could do, given Sandy’s unstinting service.

Sandy wags his finger at me. “You sound like Alexandra Graham. That woman is in serious need of guidance, but that husband of hers is too besotted with her to do as he should.”

“He is?” I smile, thinking that if Matthew is besotted with Alex, she definitely returns the favour.

“You know he is.” Sandy smiles. “A marvellous woman, for all that she is wild and half-heathen.”

“Matthew isn’t too bad either,” I say.

Sandy chuckles and gets to his feet. “Well you would say so, wouldn’t you? After all, you’ve made him up.” With that he is gone.

Upon hearing Alexander Peden was dead a company of soldiers chose to disinter his body, intending to hang his corpse from the gallows in Cumnock. Loud objections from the people led to Sandy being reburied at the foot of the gallows. In due course, an impressive monument was erected over his final resting place. Not that Sandy ever wanted a monument – all he wanted was the freedom to worship God according to his beliefs.

If the above has inspired you to want to learn more about Alexander Peden and the religious persecution that plagued the Scottish Lowlands in the aftermath of the Restoration, why not read The Prodigal Son ?

In Ayrshire, people close ranks around their evicted Presbyterian ministers. But disobedience comes at a high price, and Alex becomes increasingly nervous as to what her Matthew is risking by his support of the clandestine ministers – foremost amongst them the charismatic Sandy Peden.

Privately, Alex considers Sandy an enervating fanatic and all this religious fervour is incomprehensible to her. So when Matthew repeatedly sets his faith and ministers before his own safety, he puts their marriage under severe strain.

Things are brought to a head when Matthew places all their lives in the balance to save his dear preacher from the dragoons. How much is Matthew willing to risk? How much will he ultimately lose?

Anna Belfrage

# # #

About the Author

Had Anna been allowed to choose, she’d have become a time-traveller. As this was impossible, she became a financial professional with two absorbing interests: history and writing. Anna has authored the acclaimed time travelling series The Graham Saga, set in 17th century Scotland and Maryland, as well as the equally acclaimed medieval series The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in 14th century England. Her Castilian Heart is the third in her “Castilian” series, a stand-alone sequel to her September 2020 release, His Castilian Hawk. Set against the complications of Edward I’s invasion of Wales, His Castilian Hawk is a story of loyalty, integrity—and love. In the second instalment, The Castilian Pomegranate, we travel with the protagonists to the complex political world of medieval Spain. This latest release finds our protagonists back in England—not necessarily any safer than the wilds of Spain! Anna has also authored The Whirlpools of Time in which she returns to the world of time travel. Join Duncan and the somewhat reluctant time-traveller Erin on their adventures through the Scottish Highlands just as the first Jacobite rebellion is about to explode! All of Anna’s books have been awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion, she has several Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choices, and one of her books won the HNS Indie Award in 2015. She is also the proud recipient of various Reader’s Favorite medals as well as having won various Gold, Silver and Bronze Coffee Pot Book Club awards. Find out more about Anna, her books and enjoy her eclectic historical blog on her website, www.annabelfrage.com and find her on Facebook, Twitter @abelfrageauthor and Bluesky @abelfrageauthor.bsky.social

Historical Fiction Spotlight: The Fern Flower, by Kathleen Shoop

2026-09-04T05:04:35.871+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Russia 1908-1917: Born into privilege as the daughter of the Tsar’s favored vodka maker, Mila appears to have everything: wealth, status, and a household devoted to her happiness. But behind the gilded doors of her family estate, she is trapped by the cruelty of a stepmother whose greatest wish is to give birth to her own child.

Each summer on Ivan Kupala Eve, Russia turns its gaze to river bends and forest floors in search of the legendary Fern Flower—a mythical bloom said to grant fortune, power, and the deepest desires of the heart. Only one person had ever found it.

Until Mila.

Years later, in the fading grandeur of Petrograd, Mila and her friends slip into the fabled Stray Dog Café, once the sanctuary of Russia’s most daring artists and dreamers. Inspired by its ghosts, murals, and memories, Mila's group resurrects the work she'd first imagined as a child. The Fern Flower is a breathtaking ballet drawn from folklore, magic, and the secrets of Mila’s past.

But in the fiercely competitive ranks of the Imperial Ballet School, talent is never enough. Though Mila wrote the ballet and her gifted musician friend composed its score, rivals question whether Mila is worthy of claiming the coveted lead role.

As World War I intensifies and revolution ignites, the Russia Mila knows begins to collapse. Family secrets surface, loyalties are tested, and the people she loves begin to disappear. When her parents flee and her young brother’s life hangs in the balance, Mila is faced with an impossible choice: remain with the found family who helped her chase her dreams or risk everything to save the person who needs her most.

With Russian folklore, imperial grandeur, and the fierce beauty of ballet, The Fern Flower is a sweeping tale of ambition, friendship, sacrifice, and the magic that survives even when the world is falling apart.

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About the Author

Bestselling author, Kathleen Shoop, PhD’s novels have won awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), Eric Hoffer Book Awards, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Readers’ Favorite, and more. Kathleen has more than 20 years of experience in the classroom and has been featured in USA Today and the Writer’s Guide. She co-coordinates Mindful Writers Retreats and co-coordinated the 2023 Pennwriters Conference. She frequently teaches and is a regular presenter at conferences for writers. Find out more at Kathleen's website: http://kshoop.com and find her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter / X @kathieshoop and Bluesky @kathleenshoop.bsky.social

Book Launch Spotlight: Queens and Kings: An Unusually Personal History, by Lucy Worsley

2026-09-03T05:56:51.114+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Lucy Worsley has lived and breathed royal history for more than twenty years. As Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, she worked in some of Britain's most famous royal sites, from Hampton Court to the Tower of London, and even lived in one of them herself. Now she takes us behind closed doors to reveal some of the monarchy's best-kept secrets.

In Queens and Kings, Lucy brings to life the rulers who have shaped Britain over the last thousand years, from Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn to Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II. What emerges is a royal world far stranger, funnier and more surprising than we might think: of intimate love letters, phantom pregnancies, unruly pet monkeys and fatal betrayals. Venturing through haunted staircases and into private bedchambers, she finds the details that make history feel gloriously human.

With her trademark warmth and incisive scholarship, Lucy explores the full splendour, scandal and sorrow of royal life. The result is a wildly engaging history of the monarchy from one of our most beloved historians.

'Warm, insightful, and full of heart, Worsley has distilled a lifetime of experience into this crowning achievement of a book.' HALLIE RUBENHOLD

# # #

About the Author

Dr Lucy Worsley was Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the charity which looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, and other historic places. Her first paid employment after studying history at Oxford was at a minor stately home called Milton Manor, near Abingdon, where she fed the llamas. After that she became an Inspector of Ancient Monuments at English Heritage, doing historical research at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire: this led to her first book, 'Cavalier', about a dissolute Royalist duke. Her work as a curator at Kensington Palace led to 'Courtiers', which was followed by 'If Walls Could Talk', 'A Very British Murder', and her first historical novel for young readers, 'Eliza Rose', which is set at the Tudor court.for young readers, 'Eliza Rose', which is set at the Tudor court. For more information visit Lucy's website www.lucyworsley.com and find her on Twitter @Lucy_Worsley and Bluesky @lucyworsley.bsky.social

Book Launch Spotlight: The Goddess Queen: The sweeping historical novel by Alice Roberts

2026-09-01T04:25:50.317+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

QUEEN OF EGYPT. WARRIOR OF ROME. THE FATE OF AN EMPIRE.

The Roman Republic is crumbling, torn apart by rivalries. Egypt is a wellspring of wealth, but its rulers have squandered their advantage and ended up hopelessly indebted to the protection racket that called itself Rome.

Now a woman, as Pharaoh, has a chance to reclaim what Egypt has lost. And a disgraced Roman commander has his chance to reclaim his sword and wield it to build an empire unlike anything the world had seen.

Their stories collide in a maelstrom of ancient history, high politics and power. This is the story of Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen who confronted and contested the power of Rome. And Antonius, the soldier who might be her salvation or her downfall.

# # #

About the Author

Professor Alice Roberts is an academic, author and broadcaster. Best known for her programmes and write books about human anatomy, physiology, evolution, archaeology and history, she is a medical doctor, and went on to become a university lecturer. and Professor of Public Engagement with Science at the University of Birmingham. Find out more at Alice's webssite https://www.alice-roberts.co.uk and you van also find her on Facebook and Twitter @theAliceRoberts

Book Launch Guest Post by Rosemary Griggs, Author of Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley

2026-08-30T05:25:24.841+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The name ‘Kat Ashley’, Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Governess’, is well-known to fans of Tudor history. Katherine Champernowne, later John Astley’s wife, joined Elizabeth’s household before the future queen turned three. Later she became Elizabeth’s ‘governess’, trusted with the upbringing of the King’s younger daughter. Formidably well-educated for a woman of her time, reports suggest Katherine did an excellent job. When Elizabeth came to the throne, one of her first actions was to name Katherine as Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a highly influential position within the court of a female monarch.

Although they served at the court of Henry VIII, the Champernowne family are not well known to those who study Tudor history. However, anyone interested in the early life of Elizabeth I will have come across Katherine Champernowne, later the wife of John Astley. She is widely known as Elizabeth’s childhood governess, Kat Ashley. I prefer to call her Kate, partly because the evidence that Elizabeth actually used the short form ‘Kat’ is not overwhelming, but also to reinforce that I have found a woman who differs from the Kat of popular culture.

Kate appears briefly in many learned biographies of Henry VIII’s younger daughter. It’s often been supposed she came from a minor gentry family. Writers and filmmakers often portray her in fiction and on screen as a rather foolish, gossipy nanny figure, a minor supporting character in the fascinating drama of Elizabeth’s fraught early years. My research tells a different story.

Far from being from a rural gentry background, Kate was close to people at the heart of the Tudor Court. By the early 16th century, the Champernownes of Devon had expanded their lands well beyond the west country, into Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Over many generations, through dynastic marriages, they forged alliances with powerful families, including Poyntz, Carew, and, most notably, Courtenay.

Like many women of her time, the historical record remains stubbornly silent about Kate’s early life. She first comes to notice when appointed to the household of three-year-old Elizabeth in 1536. Exploring her family connections and the people she was close to places that appointment in context.

Kate was the eldest daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne, a close relative of Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, first cousin and companion of the young Henry VIII. The Marquess’s father was Sir Philip’s first cousin. Sir Philip served as squire of the body to the king for a time, mixing with other well-known courtiers, before he retired to the west country, where he often deputised for the Marquess. Kate may have gained her formidable education among her powerful Courtenay relatives.

Through her maternal grandmother, Kate also had connections to the Poyntz family, who held prominent positions in Catherine of Aragon’s household. Kate’s great aunt married Sir Anthony Poyntz. She is likely the Elizabeth Poyntz who had care of Henry VIII’s short-lived son, Henry Duke of Cornwall. Also on the maternal side, Kate’s uncle, Sir Gawen Carew married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk’s sister.

Brandon was a close friend of the king and married Mary Tudor, the king’s sister, after the death of her first husband, the King of France. Sir Gawen became a prominent courtier, soldier and diplomat. Sir George Carew, ill-fated captain of the Mary Rose, and his brother Sir Peter, were Kate’s cousins.

Kate’s sister, Joan, was one of Catherine Parr’s ladies and shared her interest in the reformed religion. Joan married Sir Anthony Denny, a man so close to King Henry VIII that he was the only one brave enough to tell the dying king that his end was near. Kate’s brother, John, also had a place at court. According to Sir Richard Carew of Anthony, writing in the early years of the seventeenth century, John was popular with King Henry ‘for his pleasant conceits’. So Kate moved in circles close to the royal court. She also knew many Cambridge-educated intellectuals.

Not long after Anne Boleyn’s execution, Kate was one of a group of serving gentlewomen appointed to serve Anne’s three-year-old daughter. Their role was to keep company with the little girl, to entertain her, and at all times to model the behaviour and manners expected of a noblewoman in the sixteenth century. Soon after this appointment, Kate made her first known appearance in the historical record with an extraordinarily bold letter to Thomas Cromwell. That letter, dated 5 October 1536, made me stop and think about the way historians and writers have traditionally portrayed Kate’s character.

To paraphrase the letter — there’s a full transcript in my book — Kate thanks Cromwell for recommending her to the king for her new post. She then asks him if he could speak to the king about payment for her services. Unfortunately, we only have half of this fascinating correspondence. Many of Thomas Cromwell’s papers were destroyed at the time of his downfall, and his response has not survived. In 1536, Cromwell was the most powerful man in the land, after the king. He was not a man who acted without a purpose.

Political considerations influenced his every decision, including Kate’s appointment. I found it very hard to reconcile the author of that letter to the great man with the foolish character traditionally given to Kate. Would a girl, however well educated, from a minor gentry family, really have dared to write to him in those terms? And would Cromwell have even considered appointing someone so lacking in judgement?

n 1536, Lady Margaret Bryan was Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress, having overall oversight of the child’s upbringing and early years education. Lady Troy, working with Lady Bryan, was Elizabeth’s governess, and likely introduced the child to her letters using a hornbook. At that time, no one expected Elizabeth would become queen. Rather, as the king’s daughter, even though declared illegitimate, she was a valuable commodity in the marriage market. In her early years, she must gain all the attributes that would make her attractive as a bride.

Sometime after Lady Bryan took charge of the nursery of Edward VI in 1537, and Lady Troy became Lady Mistress to Elizabeth, Kate was promoted to Elizabeth’s governess. More than ten years later, in a letter to Protector Edward Seymour, dated 31 January 1549, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was questioning Elizabeth about her involvement with Thomas Seymour, confirmed that it was King Henry VIII himself who promoted Kate to be Elizabeth’s Lady Mistress. That means she became Lady Mistress before King Henry died in 1547. It also tells us that Kate not only had the support and trust of Cromwell but also of Elizabeth’s father.

Many assumptions and myths have grown up about Kate Astley, repeated so often that people consider them facts. She’s been called jolly and kind, with unconventional teaching methods, and given credit for single-handedly introducing the little girl to a long list of subjects. These statements are not confirmed in primary sources. As a royal governess, her remit was much broader than that of a Jane Eyre-style Victorian governess. Kate also had to be a mentor, adviser, and protector. She did not deliver all the academic lessons herself but had oversight of input from a range of tutors, music masters, dance teachers, riding instructors and a chaplain, who covered a wide-ranging curriculum.

From nineteenth-century scholars to more recent historians, the focus has been on the events of 1548-49 when Elizabeth was under the roof of her stepmother, the Dowager Queen, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. Kate’s deposition, taken in the Tower of London in January 1549, gives all the salacious details of Seymour’s behaviour towards the fourteen-year-old girl, which appear to modern eyes beyond inappropriate. As a result, Kate has been declared negligent, a gossip, and even considered to have herself been infatuated with the dashing Admiral.

These assessments do not seem to fit with the view of Elizabeth’s tutors, William Grindal and Roger Ascham, who both praised Kate for her care of the young princess. In my book, I explore an alternative scenario, placing Kate’s testimony in a different light as part of a strategy designed to protect the young princess. Interpretations of that difficult period have largely defined what people think about Kate Astley, while her later years have often been overlooked. Closer study reveals Kate as a political actor, staunchly loyal to Elizabeth.

In 1554, after the Wyatt rebellion against Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage, Kate suffered a long period of house arrest. She was suspected because her cousin, Sir Peter Carew, was a prime mover in the failed plot. Mary eventually allowed Kate to rejoin her mistress briefly, but clearly considered Kate a dangerous influence on Elizabeth and a threat. Only a few months later she held Kate in the Fleet Prison on suspicion of involvement in another plot and then banished her from Elizabeth’s service.

After Elizabeth came to the throne, she made Kate her Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a pivotal role with unique, intimate access to the queen. Kate was Elizabeth’s eyes and ears, listening out for damaging gossip and keeping Elizabeth in touch with how her policies were being received at court and beyond. Anyone who wanted to approach Elizabeth talked to Kate. She gave advice on what sort of gifts might be welcome at New Year. An Italian news sheet described her as ‘Patroness of all England’ in 1562. A year after Kate’s death, Hugh Fitzwilliam wrote to the queen saying, ‘Now that Mrs Ashley is gone he has no friend to make his moan to.’

Kate acted as a highly political female courtier at the court of a female monarch. Her death in 1565 left the queen devastated. The two women shared a close bond of mutual love and respect for nearly 30 years. Kate Astley arguably had more influence on the young Elizabeth I than anyone else. She deserves our further consideration.

I hope that Queen Elizabeth’s Governess: The Real Kat Ashley will encourage further debate about a remarkable woman.

Rosemary Griggs

# # #

About the Author

Author and speaker Rosemary Griggs has been researching Devon's sixteenth-century history for years. She has discovered a cast of fascinating characters and an intriguing network of families whose influence stretched far beyond the West Country. She loves telling the stories of the forgotten women of history — the women beyond the royal court; wives, sisters, daughters and mothers who played their part during those tumultuous Tudor years: the Daughters of Devon. Her novel A Woman of Noble Wit tells the story of Katherine Champernowne, Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother, and features many of the county’s well-loved places. The Dartington Bride, published March 2024, is the extraordinary tale of Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery who travelled from France to Elizabethan England to marry into the prominent and well-connected Champernowne family. Rosemary creates and wears sixteenth-century clothing, a passion which complements her love for bringing the past to life through a unique blend of theatre, history and re-enactment. Her appearances and talks for museums and community groups all over the West Country draw on her extensive research into sixteenth-century Devon, Tudor life and Tudor dress, particularly Elizabethan. Out of costume, Rosemary leads heritage tours of the gardens at Dartington Hall, a fourteenth-century manor house and now a a historic visitor destination, events venue and thriving community of businesses, colleges and more. You can find out more on Rosemary’s website: https://rosemarygriggs.co.uk/ and follow her on Bluesky and Twitter @RAGriggsauthor

Anna of Denmark and Inigo Jones

2026-08-29T05:59:27.397+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

A crown won in the eye of a storm. A queen who refuses to be broken... Princess Anna of Denmark sails for Scotland to marry King James VI, but storms ravage her fleet, igniting a deadly obsession with witchcraft in her new home. Arriving in a strange and paranoid court, Anna finds her new husband’s bed is a treacherous place.

While researching my new book, ‘Queen Anna’, about the life of Anna of Denmark, I realised the significance of her unlikely relationship with Inigo Jones, the son of clothworker from Smithfield, London. Together, they led an artistic renaissance that transformed the ‘masque’ into an important diplomatic spectacle, laid the foundations of British classical architecture, and influenced the public perception of the Stuart dynasty.

Anna arrived in England after the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 as queen consort of King James VI and I, she brought with her a bold, artistic sensibility that redefined the Jacobean court. Anna employed Inigo Jones as her stage designer, and found he was a visionary artist and aspiring architect who would become her ultimate creative partner.

Sketch for a portrait of the architect Inigo Jones,

created by Anthony van Dyck around 1632.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Stagecraft and Spectacular Masques

Queen Anna was passionate about the court masque, extravagant theatrical spectacles combining poetry, music, dancing, and elaborate set design. Collaborating with playwright Ben Jonson, who probably recommended Inigo Jones as a set designer, Queen Anna transformed these performances into dazzling displays of royal majesty.

For landmark productions like The Masque of Blackness (1605) and The Masque of Queens (1609), Anna commissioned the works and took centre stage as a performer, ordering the late queen’s priceless gowns to be adapted as costumes. Inigo Jones brought her theatrical visions to life using innovative stagecraft he’d discovered while working in Italy.

He designed exotic, glittering costumes and introduced innovative, movable scenery, perspective stage sets, and hidden machinery that amazed the court. Through these masques, Anna asserted her independence and cultural authority, and Inigo Jones established himself as the master of illusion in England.

Masque costume "A Star" by Inigo Jones

(Wikimedia Commons)

Redefining Royal Spaces: Denmark House

As their creative alliance deepened, Queen Anna entrusted self-trained architect Inigo Jones with grander architectural commissions. In the 1610s, Anna made Somerset House on the Strand her primary London residence and renamed it Denmark House to honour her Danish heritage.

She appointed Inigo Jones, by then appointed the Surveyor of the King’s Works, to modernise and remodel the aging Tudor mansion. Jones introduced classical renaissance ideas, remodelling the courtly apartments, designing a grand new cabinet room, and creating a sophisticated, continental venue where Anna hosted foreign ambassadors, literary figures, and intellectuals.

The Masterpiece: The Queen’s House at Greenwich

Anna’s most enduring legacy with Inigo Jones came in 1616, when she commissioned him to design a private pavilion at Greenwich. The site presented an unusual challenge, as the main road between Deptford and Woolwich cut directly through the royal grounds.

Inigo Jones devised an elegant, symmetrical 'H'-shaped villa that bridged over the bustling road, connecting the royal gardens to the palace grounds. Inspired by the Italian Palladian style Jones had studied abroad, the Queen's House featured white stonework and harmonious proportions.

The Queen’s House at Greenwich

(Wikimedia Commons)

Their Legacy

Queen Anna never saw her Greenwich palace completed. She fell ill and passed away in March 1619, leaving the building half-finished. Construction stalled for over a decade until work resumed under Queen Henrietta Maria, who saw Jones's grand design realised in the 1630s.

The partnership between Anna of Denmark and Inigo Jones transformed English art and architecture. Anna provided the dynamic patronage, European ambition, and financial backing, while Inigo Jones supplied the artistic and architectural genius. Together, they pushed Jacobean court culture into a brilliant new era and began a renaissance which endures to this day.

Tony Riches

Author Interview with Ellen Rachlin, Author of Enheduanna's Song From The Sands

2026-08-25T04:45:29.364+00:00

Available from

Amazon UK and Amazon US

Discover the untold story of Enheduanna, the world’s first named author, as she navigates power, betrayal, and divine destiny in ancient Mesopotamia. A mesmerizing fusion of history, myth, and female leadership that challenges how we see the past—and ourselves.

I'm pleased to welcome author Ellen Rachlin to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your book.

It’s about a little-known ancient world that lasted for about 2,000 years, a high priestess who happens to be the world’s first named author, a life-or-death struggle that shaped the course of literature, and revenge.

Enheduanna is one of the most notable historical figures of ancient Mesopotamia. She wielded a great deal of power, but paid a steep price for assuming such authority. She was the daughter of Sargon the Great, a prominent high priestess, and the world’s first named author. There is attestation in one of the hymns attributed to her that she was forced into exile by a rebel king, but later reinstated. That’s all we know. My story imagines her rise to power, her fall, and her restoration.

The remarkable works attributed to her make her extraordinary, whether or not she was their actual author. We don’t know which is true, but both possibilities help explain why she stands out as one of the most memorable figures of this long chapter in ancient history. That uncertainty gave me the freedom to create a rich narrative around an extraordinary woman’s life.

What is your preferred writing routine?

I enter a state of slight panic that I can’t channel my characters deeply enough. That’s when I’m most alert. Then I calm down and write, ideally every day.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Study with teachers who know what they are doing. Learn craft first. Without structure, it’s much more difficult to communicate your story. Without knowing the basic elements, it’s impossible to know how the rules can be changed, if one chooses to do so. Then keep studying and reading. I’m still learning.

After that, focus on the story you wish to tell and on creating it. There’s a more commercial approach in which a writer studies the market and embraces where readership is concentrated. If one can write quickly, I suppose that’s a viable process, but tastes change, and it takes a long time to bring a book to readers.

If you write what you are passionate about, you’re more likely to make your characters come alive.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?

There are so many outlets. I don’t think anyone knows what works best. Writers I know try everything, and there are lots of people willing to help. But at the heart of raising awareness is the author’s willingness to stand behind their work and champion it. Authors are the best spokespeople for their work.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research

Ancient Mesopotamian myths echoed mortal life experiences. Their gods were neither solely good nor solely evil, but complex beings possessing elements of both. They were subject to errors in judgment, human-like weaknesses, accountability for their actions, and judgment by other gods. This is quite different from modern notions of divinity.

Because of these qualities, the myths offered natural parallels to the Enheduanna of my imagination. She is a woman of remarkable agency for her time. She is also targeted by rebels and even by her own brothers. She is victimized, but refuses to be a victim. At first, this makes her ruthless, just as the gods can be in the myths. Yet, as in the myths, power has its price.

The myths themselves became my inspiration, along with Enheduanna’s mysterious and largely unknown life.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

Every scene has challenges; the most difficult one in Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands was the first chapter. I couldn’t tell her story without telling her father’s story. Enheduanna didn’t make enemies; she inherited generational ones. Sargon’s story needed to be told without interruption, so I began there rather than with Enheduanna. Slowing down and choosing to open with Sargon as a young cupbearer (one responsible for food and drink for a king) was a difficult choice.

What are you planning to write next?

At the moment, I’m writing a literary novel set in modern times, but I plan to return to ancient Mesopotamia, as there are so many figures from that era who fascinate me. By then, I hope that more readers will be curious about ancient Mesopotamia.

Ellen Rachlin

# # #

About the Author

Ellen Rachlin’s poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Granta, Court Green, Literary Imagination, and various anthologies. She has published two collections of her poems, Until Crazy Catches Me (Antrim House, 2008) and Permeable Divide (Antrim House, 2017), winner of the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Award. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Waiting for Here (Finishing Line Press, 2004), a finalist in the New Women's Voices series, and Captive to Residue (Flarestack Publishing, 2009). She received her MFA from Antioch University. She serves as Treasurer of The Poetry Society of America and is a partner at Blue Leaf Ventures. Other writing genres include numerous textbook and journal articles on the subject of finance and investing with various publishers including Wiley. Find out more at Ellen's Website: https://www.ellenrachlin.com/ and find her on Facebook and Instagram

The Tudor’s Road to Bosworth Part 7: The Battle of Bosworth

2026-08-22T05:29:19.728+00:00

In this series I have followed the progress of Henry and Jasper Tudor from Pembroke Castle to their long exile in Brittany and return with an army to Wales. Their long march, covering as much as twenty-six miles a day, ended when they encountered King Richard’s army camped at Ambion Hill, close to Sutton Cheyney.

The Battle of Bosworth is poorly documented, with no first-hand accounts surviving. Anything we read about the battle therefore has to be looked at closely to see who wrote it and when.

I visited the at Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre for the special anniversary weekend events, which now attract visitors to the area from all over the world. As well as a re-creation of the march to Bosworth, there was a full scale re-enactment of the battle, complete with the hundreds of archers and the artillery of the Wars of The Roses Society.

It was also fascinating to visit the ‘living history’ encampment and see the soldiers preparing for battle. I spoke to several of them and they take great pride in achieving historical accuracy – even to the extent of sleeping in their flimsy canvas tents overnight, despite the strong winds.

There was a poignant moment as we all held a one-minute silence in memory of the men who died at Bosworth Field. I’d be interested to know what Henry Tudor would have to say if he knew the battle was still being re-enacted so many centuries after his amazing victory.

Tony Riches

See Also:

The Tudors' Road to Bosworth Part 1: The Tudors Escape to Brittany

The Tudors' Road to Bosworth Part 2: Exiled at Château de l’Hermine, Brittany

The Tudors' Road to Bosworth Part 3: Exiled at Château de Suscinio, Brittany

The Tudors' Road to Bosworth Part 4: Henry Tudor at Forteresse de Largoët, Brittany

The Tudors’ Road to Bosworth Part 5: Jasper Tudor at Château Josselin, Brittany

The Tudors’ Road to Bosworth Part 6: The Tudors Land at Mill Bay in Pembrokeshire

About the Author:

Tony Riches is a full-time UK author of historical fiction. He lives with his wife in Pembrokeshire, West Wales and is a specialist in the lives of the early Tudors. As well as his Elizabethan series, Tony’s historical fiction novels include the best-selling Tudor trilogy and his Brandon trilogy, (about Charles Brandon and his wives). For more information about Tony’s books please visit his website tonyriches.com and find him on Instagram, Bluesky and Twitter/X @tonyriches.

Author Anna Belfrage Reviews Queen Anna, Book One of the Stuart Queens Trilogy

2026-08-20T05:36:54.265+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Over the last few years, I’ve read my way through Mr Riches books—from the first I picked up about Eleanor Cobham, supposed witch, to this, his most recent release, Queen Anna. It is his first book set in Stuart times, and Anna—or Anne as she is known in English history—is the first Stuart queen, a Danish princess married to James VI of Scotland and I of England. As a Scandinavian, I am rather pleased Mr Riches allows her to keep her real name throughout the book—and I loved the occasional Danish words and sentences.

James is older than Anna. She is a young teenager when they wed in 1589, he is over twenty, well-educated and somewhat paranoid. That’s what happens when you grow up surrounded by regents who have a tendency to die, whether it be murdered, fatally wounded defending James’ crown, or executed. He has also developed a fondness for male favourites, surrounding himself with young, male courtiers.

Mr Riches describes Anna’s first few years in Scotland as difficult. A new language, new customs, a husband she rarely sees and who clearly has no intention of involving her in matters of the state—the latter not entirely surprising, as Anna has seen her mother navigating a similar situation, having been excluded from the regency for her young son when Anna’s father died. However, Anna’s parents had a close relationship, and while Sofia of Mecklenburg had no official say in things, she probably exerted a strong unofficial influences—as queens should. Anna does not.

When Anna realises she is to be excluded from the raising of her children, the relationship with James takes a turn for the worse. At some point, the only thing uniting Anna and James is the final prize: the throne of England.

As always, Mr Riches delivers a well-researched book and presents a female protagonist restricted not only by her gender but also by her role. When her husband lavishes attention on one male favourite after the other, she can do nothing but bear it—or manipulate things so that the favourite he chooses is one in Anna’s debt. In England, they live more or less entirely separate lives. Not even when their eldest son, Henry Frederick, dies, are they united for more than a moment. He reverts to his life, she to hers. It is quite sad, all in all.

Mr Riches gives us a woman who is very much an island unto herself in the bustling court of James I. Yes, she is intensely involved in masques and other entertainments, but other than her loyal female companions, her intimate circle is very small. It includes her surviving daughter and son, but it never includes the man she wed. Not even when she lies on her deathbed does James come to her side. But he did write a pretty poem for her afterwards. Somehow, I think Anna would have preferred a hand to hold on to.

Anna Belfrage

# # #

About the Author

Now available for pre-order: Lady of the Castle: A Medieval Epic of Love, Loyalty, and Betrayal (The Nicola de la Haye Series Book 2) by Rachel Elwiss Joyce

2026-08-19T05:03:01.733+00:00

Available for pre-order from

Amazon UK and Amazon US

For a woman, holding power in a man's world is dangerous;

holding faith in an intolerant one is deadly.

England, 1185. Nicola de la Haye, constable of Lincoln Castle, commands her fortress with hard-won authority. Determined to protect her family from a kingdom fracturing around her, she discovers the hardest battle is the one inside her own walls.

When the king's chancellor marches an army to her gates and her husband stands accused of treason, Nicola must hold her castle against a siege—and hold her family together against something far harder to fight. As her marriage buckles under the weight of loss, jealousy, and the ghosts of their pasts, Nicola must choose between the walls she has built around herself and the man she has never fully let in.

Miles away, Nicola's Jewish childhood friend Bella has built her world on different foundations: a husband she adores, a strong, vibrant community, and a faith and traditions kept alive despite centuries of persecution. When crusading fervour sweeps the nation, Bella's family is stripped of its fortune and forced to flee to York—only to find themselves trapped in a castle tower by a mob demanding baptism or death.

As King Richard the Lionheart departs for the Holy Land, leaving England to turn on itself, both women face the same impossible question: what do you love enough to sacrifice everything for?

# # #

About the Author

After a rewarding career in the sciences, Rachel returned to her first love—history and the art of storytelling. Fascinated by the women history neglected, or tried to forget, she creates meticulously researched, emotionally resonant fiction that brings her characters’ stories vividly to life. Her fascination with the past began early. At six years old, she was already inventing tales about medieval women in castles, inspired by her treasured Ladybird books and other picture-rich stories that transported her to another time. By the time she discovered Katherine by Anya Seton as a teenager, she knew the joy and escape that only great historical fiction can bring. Rachel’s two grown-up children still tease her (fondly) about childhoods spent being “dragged” around castles, archaeological sites, and historical re-enactments. For Rachel, history and imagination have always gone hand in hand.There was, however, a long gap between the stories of her childhood and her decision to write her own novel. The spark came when she discovered the remarkable true story of Nicola de la Haye—the first female sheriff of England, who defended Lincoln Castle against a French invasion and became known as “the woman who saved England.” Rachel knew she had found her heroine, and a story she was destined to tell. Rachel lives in the UK, where she continues to explore the lives of women who shaped history but were left out of its pages. Lady of Lincoln is her debut novel, the first book in her Nicola de la Haye Series, with sequels to follow. Find out more at www.rachelelwissjoyce.com and find Rachel on Facebook and

X/ Twitter: @RachelElwJoyce

Special Guest Interview with Nancy Bilyeau, Author of The Heiress of Northanger Abbey

2026-08-17T07:01:24.372+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Gloucestershire, 1820: Twenty-two years after the close of Northanger Abbey, Catherine Tilney seems to be living a happily ever after. But her busy life as a clergyman’s wife is shattered by a letter that resurrects her darkest fears. Her daughter Phoebe has fallen under the influence of the unscrupulous Thorpe family—the very figures who once nearly destroyed Catherine’s happiness.

The Heiress of Northanger Abbey, publishing in ebook, paperback, and hardcover on September 1st, Is Nancy Bilyeau’s ninth historical novel. She took the time to answer some questions on her vision for the novel and why Gothic fiction is so important to this story.

Is The Heiress of Northanger Abbey a prequel, a sequel, or a retelling of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey?

My novel is a sequel to Northanger Abbey. The story takes place from May and August in 1820. The main character is Catherine Tilney—she was Catherine Morland in the original novel, and at the end of the novel she married Henry Tilney—and the novel is written in the first person.

What kind of novel is The Heiress of Northanger Abbey—does it have a plot revolving around a young woman in the marriage market like what Jane Austen focused on? Or is it a murder mystery in which one of the characters is a sleuth?

My novel is not a murder mystery, but the plot is a suspenseful one. And the suspense does come from that Jane Austen preoccupation of marriage motives when it comes to heiresses. Whether it’s Georgiana Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or Miss Grey in Sense and Sensibility, women are targeted by fortune hunters. In Northanger Abbey, a crucial plot point is General Tilney’s mistaken belief that Catherine Morland is an heiress—and what happens when he realizes she is not.

In my novel, Catherine understands these mercenary hidden motives can cause pain in a young woman’s life, and so when she believes her own daughter, Phoeber, is being targeted, she leaps into action to protect her. Henry, Eleanor, and Frederick Tilney return and so do Isabella and John Thorpe. I also created some new characters, principally Phoebe but also the children of Isabella Thorpe and her mysterious neighbor, Lord Pomeroy, in Dartmoor.

Why did you pick the year 1820 for The Heiress of Northanger Abbey?

Most people believe that the “action” of the original novel took place in 1798. I wanted my story to go forward twenty-two years to a juncture in Catherine’s life when she is about to turn forty and Phoebe is seventeen, the same age Catherine was during Northanger Abbey.

Jane Austen famously wrote during the Regency. Is your book still in the Regency period?

If you want to be technical about it, 1820 was the last year of the Regency, because that was the year George III died and his son became king in his own right instead of ruling the country as a regent. But some people think that the “Regency period,” its culture, fashion, literature, and architecture, lasted until Victoria became queen in 1837.

I found that 1820 was a fascinating year in European history. Countries were recovering from the Napoleonic wars, and the political temperature was quite conservative. It was like a form of reaction going on against the French revolution. In France, Louis XVI’s brother had become king, and Napoleon’s allies were being persecuted.

Germany and Italy were swinging to the right. In England, the Tory Party had a landslide election. Also, George IV has off to a very bad start. There were hunger and poverty, and yet all he cared about was seeing that his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, didn’t become queen. In my novel, the scandal of the royal marriage is a backdrop running through the plot.

Where does your novel take place? Is Northanger Abbey a real place?

Jane Austen invented Northanger Abbey, the family seat of the Tilney family in Gloucestershire. But , just as with Pemberly in Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park, there were real country estates that Jane may have based the places on. She wrote about the physical building of Northanger Abbey in detail, and it was exciting—if a little intimidating—to take that fictional but well rendered place for my novel.

2007 British television film adaptation with Felicity Jones and JJ Feild

I took the story to Bath for several important chapters, just as what happens in Northanger Abbey. And the second half of my novel is set in Dartmoor at the fictional home of the husband of Isabella Thorpe. That was one of the most enjoyable things for me—writing the Dartmoor chapters. I tried to make full use of the moors, the mist, the tors, the isolation, and some of the most fascinating local legends.

What about the Gothic satire part of Northanger Abbey?

Well, that’s why I took the story to Dartmoor! I leaned into the Gothic vibe. Jane Austen was no fan of Gothic fiction, and she created a heroine in Catherine Morland who loved that popular genre and longed to find herself in a Gothic novel like Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho. Repeatedly Jane Austen made fun of Catherine’s imaginings. And yet…and yet…there are aspects of the plot, like Catherine being put out of Northanger Abbey to fend for herself, that have a Gothic drama flavor to them.

In The Heiress of Northanger Abbey, I have a lot of fun with Gothic atmosphere and the Gothic fiction that was popular in 1820, from Anne Radcliffe’s bestsellers to Matthew Lewis’s The Monk to Dr John Polidori’s The Vampyre.

Is this your first Jane Austen adjacent novel and have you written other sequels or retellings of other writers’ novels?

This is my only foray into the Jane Austen adjacent world, a fascinating place! In my other novels, novellas, and short stories, I create my own characters and worlds. This began as an interesting challenge. Kris Waldherr of Muse Publications asked me if I wanted to be one of the group of authors participating in Once Upon a Gothic. For this special limited collection, each author took a Gothic classic and wrote a retelling from a different point of view or a sequel. For example, Paulette Kennedy wrote The Last Bride, a Dracula adjacent story.

I thought about it for a long time and decided to write about Northanger Abbey. I’ve been a huge admirer of Jane Austen my whole adult life and her Gothic playfulness in that novel is very interesting. It’s also one of her funniest books. And some scholars say there are strong autobiographical elements in the novel’s treatment of Bath and depiction of Catherine Morland’s family background.

The Heiress of Northanger Abbey was published with the others on Kickstarter in 2025, emphasizing the tactile possibilities of the physical books, producing in tête-bêche format. I received the rights back after the Kickstarter funded and commissioned a new cover. I decided to add a whole new chapter and revise some other parts, and I wrote an “Author’s Note.” I’ve made the novel available for the first time on Amazon, Bookshop.org, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble, and it can be ordered in ebook, paperback, and hardback.

So far the response pre-publication has been so exciting! Real Simple magazine put it on a list of books “perfect for fall” and BlueInk gave it a star and said, “Bilyeau, an American journalist and editor who has made a career of novels of historically accurate fiction, brings emotional depth and character development to this absorbing narrative.”

Will you continue in the 19th century with your next historical novel?

I may return to it because I enjoyed this process so much, but the novel I am writing right now is Champagne at Midnight, set in 1926 New York City. I wrote the historical mysteries Dreamland and The Orchid Hour as tributes to early 20th century NYC and I continue that direction with the new one, which should be published in 2027.

Nancy Bilyeau

# # #

About the Author

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the Joanna Stafford trilogy: The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry. The series was published in the UK, North America, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Denmark. Orion Publishing is re-issuing The Crown and The Chalice in the UK with new covers for the paperback. In North America, the Joanna Stafford trilogy is available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audio formats here. Nancy lives with her family in the Hudson Valley in New York. Find out more at Nancy's website, NancyBilyeau.com and find her on Facebook, Twitter @Tudorscribe and Bluesky @nancycb.bsky.social

Special Guest Post By E.L. Ravenheart, Author of The Shadow keeper: Gothic Haunting Tales from Somerset

2026-08-16T07:12:24.320+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

In the deep woods of the Great Lakes, skeletal spirits hunt the arrogant. Shapeshifters guard what remains of the wild. Hunger transforms the soul with a single choice. Across the Atlantic, on mist-shrouded moorland where leylines pulse through peat, a barefoot girl walks for two centuries, keeping a covenant her family refused. At standing stones, trickster ravens teach threshold lessons. In dark pools, witnesses become bridges between worlds.

The Inspiration and Research behind the Shadow Keeper

When I moved to North Somerset, I moved into the Old Quarry Master’s house that sits directly across from the old town quarry in Weston-Super-Mare, I remembered standing in the kitchen on that first night, listening to the house settling around me, and thinking that I had never lived somewhere with quite so much silence – and quite so much history pressing in from every direction. I did not know it yet, but that house, and the grounds beneath it, would become the beating heart of The Shadow Keeper.

Inspiration

My mother passed away not long before I began writing this novel, and in the months afterwards, I found myself remembering the stories she used to tell me when I was young. She always seemed to know I was spiritually inclined, and she shared her stories accordingly. My favourties were always the ones about the Bear Walkers – figures she described in a way similar to a grim reaper, shapeshifting presences that moved between worlds. I held onto those stories long after I stopped believing I have ever used them.

Then I had a dream. It was about spirits and generational curses, about the way trauma and legacy can pass silently from one generation to the next, waiting to be acknowledged. When I woke, I knew I wanted to write about the inheritance – and I knew the Bear Walkers needed to be a part of it. But I did not want to simply retell my mothers stories. I wanted to reimagine them, so I decided to give the Bear Walkers a new purpose in The Shadow Keeper. As figures tied to animals and the natural world, rising to honour her stories while making something entirely my own – something inspired by my heritage, rather than a claim to speak for it.

Research and Somerset Discoveries

Once the idea took root, I need to understand the land itself. I spent months visiting museums, haunted tours and libraries, speaking to residents who were generous enough to share their own memories and family lore. That is how I learned that the underground cavern just outside my kitchen was once said to connect to the tunnels leading into the quarry itself- a detail that unsettled and trilled me in equal measures, and once I could not resist weaving into a collection book.

I walked through Weston Woods at dusk more than once, and there’s a particular smell there- iron and damp earth- that I now associate entirely with the mood of this book. I travelled out to Brean Island and Salt bay where the cliffs drop away so steeply that the whole landscape feels like it is holding its breath. I stood on Cheddar Gorge and look toward Glastonbury Tor in the distance, and later returned to watch the sunrise from that same vantage point, the Tor rising through the mist like something out of memory rather than geography.

I visited St. Johns the Baptist church from Frome, wandered through Norton St Philips, and stood at Burrow Mump, thinking about the layers of history resting quietly beneath the grass. I became fascinated with the yew trees found in so many churchyards, with ley lines, with the Moors and marshes that seem to hold their own kind of memory. I went on haunted-history tours, dug through museum archives, and slowly, the land began to feel less like a backdrop and more like a character in its own right.

Turning Research into Fiction

The greatest challenge wan not gathering the history- it was a learning how to let it breathe within the story rather than simply reciting it. St Catherine House in Bath became the model for the fictional house at the centre of the story The Circle of Witham Grange inside the book The Shadow Keeper, I could picture its rooms shifting into something darker, older, and more and more haunted.

My fictional villages, too, are shaped by real historical periods and unrest, including the later turmoil that followed the execution of King Charles I, a period whose ripple effects are still across Somerset’s landscape and stories. I want to be honest that I am still checking some of the finer historical details before this goes any further, but the emotional truth of the unrest- the sense of a land marked by upheaval- is very much present in the book.

Perhaps the hardest part of writing this novel was bringing together folklore drawn from my own heritage with the folklore and history of England, respectfully and without flattening either. I never wanted to suggest that the Bear Walkers I have written represent all Anishinaabe or Chippewa storytelling- only that they are inspired by the stories passed down to me, reshaped through my own imagination and grief.

An invitation

The Shadow Keeper began as a way to honour my mother, and became something larger: a story about land, memory, and what refuses to stay buried. I hope readers find themselves walking through Somerset’s woods and marshes right along the characters, feeling the same mixture of unease and wonder I felt while researching every page.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

E.L. Ravenheart

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About the Author

E.L. Ravenheart is a gothic fiction author with roots in the Indigenous Chippewa Nation (USA). Since relocating to the United Kingdom in 2012, Ravenheart has been writing from Weston-Super-Mare, where Somerset haunted landscapes and layered histories intertwine with Indigenous storytelling traditions. Her work blends psychological depth, atmospheric tension, and the supernatural, drawing on cultural inheritance rich in symbolism and reverence for the unseen. The Shadow Keeper is among her interconnected works exploring liminal spaces where memory, myths, and the past press insistently against the present. Find out more at https://elravenheart.co.uk/ and find the author on Instagram and Bluesky elravenheart.bsky.social

Book Review: The Orphan from Verona, by Siobhan Daiko

2026-08-14T06:26:41.685+00:00

Available from

Amazon UK and Amazon US

Verona, 1944. When an air raid strikes Elisa's home, she is left with nothing but the clothes on her back, the teddy bear clutched in her arms and her beloved older brother. Traumatised into silence, six-year-old Elisa can no longer speak and relies on Robi to guide her through this war-torn world.

Siobhan Daiko’s The Orphan from Verona balances human drama with an atmospheric sense of a city steeped in history. Set against the lingering shadows of the past, the novel offers an immersive exploration of identity and family secrets.

At the heart of the novel is a cast of compelling, related characters, and their journey through grief and personal awakening. Their relationships are portrayed with sensitivity, capturing the tension between desire and duty.

I particularly liked the details of life in occupied Verona, the counterpoint of past and present storylines and interwoven character arcs. The gradual revelation of secrets keeps readers guessing, as the plot unfolds at an engaging pace, weaving together intimate, character-driven moments with elements of mystery.

The Orphan from Verona is a well-paced, memorable novel with a sophisticated narrative that explores the complexities of human resilience. Highly recommended.

Tony Riches

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About the Author

Siobhan Daiko is a British historical fiction author. A lover of all things Italian, she lives in the Veneto region of northern Italy with her husband, a Havanese dog and a Siberian cat. Siobhan was born of English parents in Hong Kong, attended boarding school in Australia, and then moved to the UK — where she taught modern foreign languages in a Welsh high school. She now spends her time writing page-turners and living the dolce vita sweet life near Venice. Her novels are compelling, poignant, and deeply moving, with strong characters and evocative settings, but always with romance at their heart. You can find more about her books on her website www.siobhandaiko.org and follow her on Facebook and Twitter @siobhandaiko

Book Review: Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley by Rosemary Griggs

2026-08-13T05:15:44.110+00:00

Available for pre-order from

Amazon UK and Amazon US

Some of the most intriguing people in Tudor history are those who stood outside the spotlight. Katherine 'Kat' or Kate Ashley is one of these. Best known as the governess and confidante of Queen Elizabeth I, she played a pivotal role in the future queen's life, yet is overshadowed by more famous figures around her.

In Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley, Rosemary Griggs sets out to change that with a thoroughly researched and engaging biography.

I particularly liked the extracts from letters and contemporary accounts, as researching someone like Kat Ashley is a real challenge. Much of her life has to be inferred from the correspondence of others. It takes persistence and an historian's instinct to piece together fragments into a convincing narrative.

The structure of the book reflects those challenges. The first part sets the scene, exploring on the Tudor world and the Ashley family, providing some context for a woman whose early life remains largely undocumented. Part two picks up the pace as Kate enters Princess Elizabeth's household.

Rosemary Griggs paints a convincing and nuanced portrait of a woman who was more than a governess. Kate Ashley was a teacher, mentor, protector and trusted companion, remaining loyal through some of the most dangerous years of Elizabeth's life. The chapters covering the Thomas Seymour affair are well handled, presenting the available evidence with balance.

The last part of the book shifts gear again as Elizabeth becomes queen. Kate Ashley appears less frequently in the surviving records, but Rosemary Griggs demonstrates how her influence remained significant.

This biography serves as a reminder of how people behind the scenes often shaped events in ways that are easily overlooked. Rosemary Griggs deserves credit for the painstaking research that underpins this book, as well as for producing a narrative that remains accessible throughout.

Queen Elizabeth I's Governess: The Real Kat Ashley is recommended for anyone interested in Tudor history. More importantly, it allows Kate Ashley the recognition she deserves, transforming her from a familiar name in the footnotes into a remarkable woman whose influence on England's greatest queen must not be underestimated.

Tony Riches

I would like to thank the publishers, Pen and Sword History, for providing a review copy of this book.

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About the Author

Blog Tour Interview with Karen Essex, Author of Renaissance Rivals: A novel of Isabella d’Este & Lucrezia Borgia

2026-08-12T05:29:02.524+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The story of the brutal rivalry between two of history’s most fascinating power women: Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, celebrated in her own lifetime as “The First Lady of the World,” and Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of the infamous Pope Alexander VI and one of the most maligned women in history.

I'm pleased to welcome author Karen Essex to The Writing Desk:

Tell us about your latest book.

Renaissance Rivals is a novel about Isabella d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia, two of the most formidable women of the Italian Renaissance. Isabella was celebrated as the First Lady of the World in her own time, while Lucrezia was vilified as a poisoner, seductress, and dangerous daughter of a corrupt pope. When Lucrezia married Isabella’s brother, Alfonso d’Este, the two women became sisters-in-law and rivals for influence within one of Europe’s most powerful families.

Their struggle unfolds through art, fashion, jewels, letters, political alliances, marriage, motherhood, and the affections of powerful men. Beneath the rivalry lies a deeper story about two women determined to shape their own lives in a world that expected them to serve dynastic ambitions.

The novel is also a standalone sequel to Leonardo’s Swans, which introduces Isabella as a young woman and explores her relationship—and rivalry—with her sister, Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of Milan.

What is your preferred writing routine?

I do not write like a normal human being. When I feel I have truly found a story, I tend to work obsessively until I have completed at least a first draft.

A young writer once asked whether I wrote on weekends. I told her that when I am deeply immersed in a project, I take the work with me everywhere, including the bathroom. That answer was only partly a joke.

I have often wished I could develop a calmer and more orderly method. After publishing steadily and also writing extensively for film and television, I have come to accept that intense periods of concentration are part of my process. Sustaining a long career requires discipline. Obsession occasionally proves useful too.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Write something undeniable and make sure it offers something beyond your own experience. Personal material can be powerful, though it still needs shape, insight, conflict, and relevance for the reader.

Be honest about what you are writing and whom you hope to reach. Studying the conventions of your genre is not selling out. It is part of learning the craft, even when you are writing literary fiction.

Revise rigorously. Seek opinions from trusted readers who understand what you are trying to accomplish. Give the work the time it needs. There is no advantage in rushing toward publication before a manuscript is polished and ready to withstand professional scrutiny.

The publishing world receives an enormous amount of material. A strong first impression matters. It is rare for a rejected manuscript to receive a second chance after a rewrite. It can happen, but do not count on it.

What have you found to be the best way to raise awareness of your books?

Writers have to be willing to use every reasonable avenue available to them. That may include speaking engagements, interviews, podcasts, newsletters, social media, book clubs, festivals, direct outreach, partnerships, and personal appearances.

Millions of books are competing for attention. Publishing a book and hoping readers simply discover it is rarely enough.

Authors should decide what success means to them and then act accordingly. A writer who wants a wide audience must be prepared to participate actively in building that audience. Promotion can feel uncomfortable, especially for those of us who would rather be writing, though I have learned to regard it as presenting work I believe in and allowing readers to decide whether it is for them.

Finally, invest in yourself. If you do not take your own work seriously, others are unlikely to do so. When you commit time, effort, and resources to your growth, people are far more inclined to support you.

Tell us something unexpected you discovered during your research.

I began the project firmly on Team Isabella. I had researched and written about her for Leonardo’s Swans, admired her brilliance, and remained fascinated by her long after finishing that novel.

What surprised me was the depth of compassion I developed for Lucrezia Borgia. The woman behind the legend endured an extraordinary series of political marriages, family betrayals, public humiliations, and personal losses. She was repeatedly used as an instrument of her father’s and brother’s ambitions, yet she survived and eventually established herself as a respected duchess, administrator, patron, and mother.

The more I learned, the less interested I became in choosing a simple heroine and villain. Both women were intelligent, ambitious, vulnerable, and capable of hurting one another. That complexity became far more compelling than the legends surrounding them.

What was the hardest scene you remember writing?

The scenes involving difficult childbirth and the loss of children were the hardest for me to write. Women of that era faced pregnancy and childbirth with a level of danger that is difficult for modern readers to imagine. A dynastic marriage placed enormous pressure on a woman to produce heirs, yet every pregnancy carried the possibility of death for both mother and child.

As a mother, I found those scenes emotionally devastating. Writing them required me to remain close to the historical reality without exploiting the suffering. They tore me to shreds, which may be why they carry so much emotional weight in the novel.

What are you planning to write next?

My next major project is The Silk Rebellion, a six-book epic dystopian romantasy series set in an alternate world where Kleopatra and Marcus Antonius won at Actium and created an empire that survived for two thousand years.

In that world, fashion is power, beauty is law, and a vast information network called The Loom controls public life. The series follows Elissa Valeria, a celebrated designer to the empress, who gradually discovers that the magnificent society she helps sustain is built upon control, surveillance, and fear.

The first book, The Empress’s Cape, begins with Elissa at the height of her influence. She has millions of followers, dresses the most powerful woman in the empire, and believes she understands the system she serves. Then the system turns upon the people she loves. The series combines political intrigue, romance, rebellion, fashion, family conflict, and the question that drives much of my work: how does a woman claim power in a world determined to define her role? It debuts January 10, 2027, and I am eager to get it into readers’ hands.

Karen Essex

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About the Author

Karen Essex is the bestselling author of RUN, DARLING, KLEOPATRA, PHARAOH, LEONARDO'S SWANS, STEALING ATHENA, DRACULA IN LOVE, AND BETTIE PAGE: LIFE OF A PINUP LEGEND. All feature iconic women—powerful women that seduced the world and ruled it. She is also an active screenwriter and speaker, and an award-winning journalist. She divides her time between Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Europe. Her novels are published in twenty-nine languages. Find pout more at Karen's website: www.karenessex.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter / X: @KarenEssex

Special Guest post by Anna Belfrage, Author of Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga Book Two)

2026-08-05T04:59:47.965+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Matthew Graham committed the mistake of his life when he cut off his brother’s nose. In revenge, Luke Graham has Matthew abducted and transported to the Colony of Virginia, there to be sold as indentured labour – a death sentence more or less.

Indentured servants – the backbone of the colonies

The first few English attempts to set up a successful colony in the New World failed dismally. In general, people who went to the colonies in search of a better life ended up dead, and for some odd reason this made it difficult to recruit new colonists.

Without people to work the land and expand the English dominion, the Colony of Virginia was pretty much doomed, so I suspect the directors of the Virginia Company perked up substantially when someone came up with the bright idea to use indentured servants to populate their land.

The practise of indenture had been around for centuries. In essence it was a contract whereby one person voluntarily entered the service of another person for a stipulated period of time. In general, any payments for the service were paid out in arrears, which meant an indentured servant who absconded could not claim on his back pay.

1738 indentured servitude contract between Henry Mayer a

nd Abraham Hestant.The contract bound Mayer to work

for three years in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to repay

Hestant for his passage from Rotterdam.

The system set up in Virginia was somewhat different. Someone had to assume the cost of transporting the servant across the sea, and so rules were set in place whereby landowners in the colony could bring over servants at their own expense and receive up to 50 acres in compensation for their efforts.

The indentured servant was compelled by contract to work off his debt for transportation and would at the end of his period of service receive some further compensation – plus some land. The problem with this little set up was that the need for indentured labour exceeded the demand – most people were reluctant to cross the sea to an unknown wilderness from which they might never return.

If people didn’t queue up for the fantastic opportunity of expanding their horizons at no cost but their hard toil, maybe some light coercion would help, and what better way to achieve this than by snatching people off the street and have them set their cross to a document they didn’t understand? Quite a number of people were carried overseas against their will, and once on the other side there was very little they could do but submit to the inevitable and work off their years.

Whether forced or voluntary, the life of an indentured servant was no walk in the park. For a woman, there was the constant risk of being raped – these were societies with a chronic shortage of women – and should she become pregnant her term of service would be extended. The men ended up in the fields, disposable beasts of burden that were often worked until they dropped.

A disobedient (or “wilful”) servant was punished – in some cases so severely as to permanently maim the servant. Trying to run away was a serious offence that could lead to beating so brutal the person in question died, and on top of this the reluctant immigrants had to cope with food shortages and unknown ailments. On average, four out of ten indentured servants died in Virginia during the seventeenth century. No wonder the colony had problems recruiting them!

In the second instalment of The Graham Saga, Like Chaff in the Wind, my protagonist Matthew Graham is one of the unfortunates who is snatched and sold as an indentured servant to Virginia. The experience, unsurprisingly, leaves him scarred for life.

Below is an excerpt, giving some insight into Matthew’s experiences in Virginia. Not exactly light reading, but I hope it will make you interested in more!

Five unbearable days, and on the afternoon of the sixth day he was so tired that he accidentally upended the sled, tipping the load of tobacco plants into the dirt. Jones flew at him.

“Fool! Look at what you’ve done!”

Matthew got to his feet, an effort involving far too many protesting muscles. His shoulders were permanently on fire, the harness had left broad, bleeding sores on his skin, and no matter how he tried to use his worn shirt as padding, the sores deepened and widened, a constant, flaming pain.

“I’ll just load them back.” He bent to pick up an armful. His arms were clumsy with weariness, and it took far too long to reload the sled, with Jones an irate, vociferous spectator. Matthew leaned forward into the straps, bunching his thighs. Dear Lord! He couldn’t budge the load, the leather cutting even deeper into his lacerated skin. He tried again, and still the sled wouldn’t move. Matthew looked back across his shoulder to find Jones sitting on the sled.

“Go on,” Jones sneered, “get a move on.”

“You’re too heavy,” Matthew said, “you can walk.”

Jones raised a brow. “Of course I can. But now I want you to pull.”

Matthew felt his pulse begin to thud. Wafting curtains of red clouded his vision.

“I’m a man, aye? I’ll work as you tell me to, but you can move of your own accord, fat though you may be. I won’t be your yoked beast, I’m a man.” There was absolute silence around him, his companions staring at him with a mixture of admiration and exasperation.

Jones stood up and moved towards him. “That’s where you’re wrong, Graham. You’re no man, not here, not now. You’re a slave, a beast to be worked until you’re no use.” He looked at Matthew expectantly, his hand tightening on the handle of his crop.

Matthew knew he should back down, grovel and mumble, but inside of him the fire grew, red hot rage at the man in front of him, at his traitorous brother, and the injustice of it all.

“I told you. I’ve never done anything wrong. I’m a free man.”

Jones laughed. “Free? Then why are you still here? Why aren’t you on a ship back home?”

“You know why! I have no money.”

“And we own you, until you can pay yourself free, we own you.”

“Nay, no one owns me. I’m a free man.”

“And I tell you you’re but a slave,” Jones hissed.

Matthew punched him straight into the face, having the distinct pleasure of hearing the cartilage in Jones’ nose crack. That was really the last thing he observed clearly, then it was all hands and feet, and the sting of the leather crop. He heard Jones call men to him and Matthew had the shirt torn from his back, he was thrown face down onto the ground and then there was the snap of leather that came down time and time again on his bared skin. One of his arms was twisted up behind his back, and in his ear he heard Jones’ heavy breathing.

“So, what are you?”

“A free man,” Matthew gasped. The pressure on his arm was tearing at his tendons.

“What are you?”

Bend! Alex shrieked in his head, for God’s sake Matthew, bend. But he didn’t want to, he had to salvage some pride, and the pain in his shoulder increased to the point where he knew it would soon be dislocated.

“What are you?” Jones hissed again, throwing his considerable weight against Matthew’s trapped arm. Matthew groaned. Please! Alex cried, please, Matthew, for me. Don’t let him maim you for life, my love, please! In his fuddled state Matthew wasn’t sure if she was here for real, or if it was a hallucination, but the despair in her voice rang through his head.

“I’m a slave,” Matthew mumbled, closing his eyes so that he might still see Alex, not the red earth an inch from his nose.

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m a slave,” Matthew mumbled again.

Anna Belfrage

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About the Author

Book Launch Guest Post by Alistair Tosh, Author of The Sons of Carthage: Hannibal ignites a war to humble Rome... (The Lion and the Eagle Roman Thrillers Book 1)

2026-08-04T05:51:17.878+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

Two empires rise, but only one can survive…

Hasdrubal Barca: The Forgotten General

In 219 BC, Hannibal Barca, the renowned Carthaginian general, attacked Seguntum, a city allied with Rome on the eastern coast of Iberia, just north of modern-day Valencia. The siege triggered the Second Punic War, one of the greatest conflicts of the ancient world.

Hannibal's story has become legendary. His campaigns are still studied in military academies across the world, from his epic march across the Pyrenees and the mighty Alpine passes to his stunning victories over the Roman legions at Ticinus, Trebia, Lake Trasimene and, perhaps greatest of all, Cannae. There, Rome suffered one of the worst defeats in its history, with around 50,000 soldiers lying dead on the battlefield from an army of approximately 80,000.

Yet while Hannibal was devastating the Roman Republic in Italy, another theatre of the war was proving just as crucial. Iberia—modern-day Spain and Portugal—was Carthage's most valuable possession. It was rich in silver and gold, fertile agricultural land, and provided a vital source of recruits for its armies.

For most of the twelve years that the war raged across the peninsula, its defence rested in the hands of Hannibal's younger brother, Hasdrubal. The central figure in my new series, The Lion and the Eagle, Hasdrubal was a capable commander in his own right. Not only did he have to contend with the Roman legions, but he also faced near-constant rebellions from the many fierce Iberian tribes.

At one point, despite the threat of the legions, he was recalled to North Africa by the Carthaginian Senate to suppress the revolt of the Numidian king Syphax, before returning to Iberia a year later. There he, once more, faced the Roman Consuls, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, defeating them in separate engagements and restoring Carthaginian control.

Although he has never enjoyed the reputation of his elder brother as a battlefield genius, Hasdrubal was a resourceful and resilient general. Even in defeat, and there were several setbacks during his long command, he repeatedly managed to extricate himself and preserve the core of his army, allowing Carthage to continue the struggle.

His final campaign in Iberia culminated at Baecula, Santo Tomé in the Guadalquivir valley of modern-day Andalusia. There he faced the young Publius Cornelius Scipio, the future Scipio Africanus, who would later defeat Hannibal at Zama.

Recognising the quality of the Roman army opposing him, Hasdrubal established a strong defensive position on high ground overlooking the valley, where there was only one practical avenue of attack. When Scipio launched a surprise assault that overwhelmed his forward positions, Hasdrubal conducted a disciplined fighting withdrawal, escaping with the majority of his army intact.

The following year, he led that same army across the Alps into Italy, recruiting warriors from the Gallic tribes along the way in a bold attempt to reinforce Hannibal and alter the course of the war.

Overshadowed by his famous brother, Hasdrubal Barca remains one of history's forgotten generals. Through The Lion and the Eagle series, I hope to bring this remarkable commander, and his extraordinary campaigns, to a wider audience.

Alistair Tosh

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About the author

Best selling author of historical adventures, Alistair Tosh was born in Dumfriesshire, a place filled with ancient place names such as Torthorwald and Caerlaverock. But it was his visits, as a boy, to nearby Burnswark Iron Age hillfort and its Roman siegeworks that first fired his interest in ancient history. On leaving school he began a 35 year communications career, firstly with the Royal Navy, that included covert riverine and seaborne operations during the height of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, before moving into the corporate telecommunications world. Military life is unique, and Alistair aims to reflect an authentic view of that experience and its language in his stories. Follow Alistair on Facebook and Twitter/X @alistair_tosh

Blog Tour: The Fern Flower, by Kathleen Shoop

2026-08-04T05:21:36.629+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

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About the Author

Special Guest Post by Steven Veerapen, Author of Overlord: The Life and Reign of Henry VIII

2026-08-02T05:42:11.068+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

The true story behind the infamous life of Henry VIII, one of history’s best-known characters and England’s most famous monarch. He is simultaneously the virtuous Renaissance prince gone wrong, the psychopathic, paranoid tyrant and the much-married glutton.

Oh, Henry. Has there ever been an English king – or a British king – so recognisable, so equally reviled and written-about, that he is, as the great Tudor historian Sir Geoffrey Elton once claimed, recognisable by his silhouette alone? The answer is ‘no.’

Portrait of King Henry VIII, painted by Joos van Cleve around 1535.

Even those unfamiliar with the history of reformation, or parliament, or constitutional law can recognise Henry as, at least, the bloody tyrant who had six wives. Whether one’s image of him is as the buffoonish Charles Laughton, the tyrannical Keith Michell, the leering Sid James, the youthful Jonathan Rhys Meyers, or the volatile Damian Lewis, the point is this: everyone certainly has an image of him.

This was one of the more daunting things I faced when deciding to write about Henry VIII, as was the knowledge that I was hardly the first to consider a book on him – indeed, it was the work of historians such as Alison Weir, Lucy Wooding, Eric Ives, Suzannah Lipscomb, Tracy Borman, Robert Hutchinson, Jasper Ridley, and Antonia Fraser who helped kindle my fascination with Henry and his reign.

What, I wondered, was there left to say?

To my surprise, there was quite a lot. For one thing, the totemic biography of Henry himself – the political biography nonpareil, which focuses on the man and his policies rather than on his court culture, bloody marital history, or association with significant statesmen (which are all interesting in their own right) – remains J. J. Scarisbrick’s 1968 biography.

In this book, which remains standard reading on the sovereign, the author creates an image which has coloured every subsequent study: a Henry VIII who dreamed, however chimerically, of conquering France in England’s name, and who had no coherent or consistent British policy (Scarisbrick not only indicates this but states it outright). To my surprise, as a long-time student of Scottish history who frequently encountered the king well away from the continent, this simply was not the Henry I’d met in the various and surprisingly voluminous Scottish sources. Still less was it the figure I then found lingering in the pages of various Irish and Welsh documents.

Could there be another Henry VIII?

This question propelled the writing of “Overlord” and made it a joy. Here was a new version of the king I thought I knew – and backed up by a variety of sources untouched in any existing biography. This made working on the book not a workmanlike experience but – to rely on a hoary cliché – a genuine journey of discovery.

Readers, I hope, will feel the same way as they meet a familiar figure – swathed in his furs and surmounted by his bejewelled, feathered cap – in new surroundings and with all-new motives. “Overlord”, I hope, presents the would-be Emperor Henry VIII: a magnificent, awe-inspiring, frequently ghastly leader who saw himself bestriding the British Isles as a legally-justified, universally-respected colossus.

I can’t promise readers will like him any more than they do already (which is generally not at all), but I do hope they’ll be as spellbound by him – and his arrogance, bravado, and sheer self-belief – as I was.

Steven Veerapen

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About the Author

Steven Veerapen is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde who specialises in sixteenth-century literature. His first novel was The Queen’s Consort, which focused on Mary Queen of Scots’ infamous husband, Lord Darnley. Steven’s other books include the Simon Danforth trilogy, the Queen’s Spies trilogy, and three non-fiction works: Blood Feud, Elizabeth and Essex, and Slander and Sedition in Elizabethan Law, Speech, and Writing. Find out more at https://www.stevenveerapen.com/ and you can follow Steven on Instagram @steven.veerapen.3 and on Goodreads, Twitter @stevenveerapen and Bluesky @stevenveerapen.bsky.social

Witchland: A Tale of Witch Hunting and War in Seventeenth-Century Britain, by Marion Gibson

2026-07-31T05:14:49.488+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed

– and what would you have done?

In the 1640s, Britain was swept up in a brutal witch hunt. The economic uncertainty and religious extremism fuelled by the English Civil War created a climate of fear. Neighbours turned on each other. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame. In the resulting hysteria – which would, just a few decades later, provide a handbook for the Salem trials – hundreds of innocent people were killed.

Moving from village to village in Scotland and England, Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions – poverty, grief, and resentment – and how entire communities took part in persecuting the vulnerable. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. Vivid and intimate, Witchland shows that these were ordinary people with extraordinary stories, largely forgotten by history, caught up in suspicion and moral panic.

Witchland is a captivating story of fanaticism, inequality and the violence that surfaces during times of political upheaval.

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About the Author

Marion Gibson became interested in stories of magic and witchcraft when she read news accounts of witch trials in Elizabethan England. She says, 'I realised that whilst I didn't believe the accused people had been doing actual magic, I had no good explanation of why they would confess. What was going on here? What stories were they telling us about their lives? From this came my lifelong interest in storytelling about witches.' Find out more at https://mariongibson.co.uk/ and find Marion on Instagram and X @witchesetc

Historical Fiction Spotlight: A Hunt for Justice: A historical mystery of murder, superstition and hidden family crimes (The Justice Belstrang Mysteries Book 2) by John Pilkington

2026-07-29T05:50:00.047+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

England, 1617. Susanna Cobbett, teenage daughter of a powerful Worcester landowner, is found dead in a gloomy woodland pond which has an evil reputation as the Witching Pool.

The girl is said to have drowned herself, driven to madness by local widow Agnes Mason, who is arrested on a charge of witchcraft. If found guilty, she will hang at the next Assizes.

But Justice Belstrang, shrewd ex-magistrate and sceptic, does not believe a word of it. And when Agnes's family beg him to help, he finds himself caught up in an ever-darkening mystery.

With the help of his friend and fellow sceptic Doctor Boyd, Belstrang unravels the terrible crimes that have lain hidden behind the doors of the great manor of Ebbfield.

Belstrang must confront and apprehend his suspect - and risk his own life in the attempt.

# # #

About the Author

A writer for over forty years, John Pilkington has written plays for radio and theatre, television scripts for the BBC and numerous historical novels set in the Tudor and Stuart eras. They include the popular Thomas the Falconer series, now being reissued by Boldwood Books, the Martin Marbeck Mysteries featuring a government spy or 'intelligencer' (described by Booklist as 'a seventeenth century James Bond') and the Justice Belstrang Mysteries, also to be republished by Boldwood. Born in the north-west of England, he now lives in a Devon village with his partner, and has a son who is a psychologist and musician. Learn more by visiting his website at www.johnpilkington.co.uk or find him on Twitter @_JohnPilkington and Bluesky @johnpilkington.bsky.social‬

Blog Tour Spotlight: One More Hour of Daylight, by C.M. Gray

2026-07-27T05:01:06.261+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

On the first day of World War II, a young man makes a promise—one that will shape every choice he makes for the next four years.

Essex. September 1939: A wounded German pilot drops from a clear autumn sky into a quiet English field. Seventeen-year-old Derrick finds him—broken and feverish. Not an enemy. Just a young man asking for one small mercy before everything ends.

One more hour of daylight. That is all I ask. A chance to breathe free air before whatever comes next. Derrick gives him until morning. When the stretcher comes, the pilot’s last words strike Derrick like a blow he will never stop feeling.

Scotland. France. Germany. 1941–1943: In the mountains of Scotland, they teach him how to kill, how to lie, and how to endure things that break most men. Then they give him a new name, put him on a plane, and drop him into the dark.

As an SOE operative deep inside occupied Europe, Derrick Sedgley lives on false papers, borrowed names, and nerves worn to nothing by years in the shadows. He moves agents to safety, builds escape routes, and stays one breath ahead of the Gestapo.

Then a mission collapses—and everything changes. Forced to run, Derrick finds himself moving through the most dangerous corners of occupied Europe alongside someone whose connection to his past he cannot yet see. As safe houses fall, loyalties fracture, and the frozen passes of the Pyrenees rise ahead like the edge of the world, Derrick begins to understand something.

The choice he made in an Essex field on the first day of the war has been leading him here all along. Some debts cannot be paid. Some can only be carried. And some—if you are brave enough, and fortunate enough—can finally be laid to rest.

From the quiet fields of Essex to the mountains of Scotland, from the dangerous streets of Lyon to the shadows of wartime Hamburg and the high passes of the Pyrenees, One More Hour of Daylight is an unforgettable story of courage, guilt and redemption—of ordinary people forced to make impossible choices in extraordinary times.

Some promises can survive a war. Some people can too.

Praise for One More Hour of Daylight:

"A beautifully written book with a perfect pace that kept me reading
from start to finish." ~ Bookcollector, Amazon 5* Review

"A confident, carefully crafted novel that handles its subject matter with restraint, earning the weight it carries." ~ Indie Library, Goodreads 5* Review

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About the Author

C.M. Gray's first book, The Flight of the Griffin, was longlisted in the 2015 Times Chicken House Writing Competition. Shadowland, the first book in the Pendragon Saga, has so far received over 900 five-star reviews on Amazon. These things still genuinely astonish him, and he is deeply grateful for every one of them. Most of his previous work has been fantasy: either pure fantasy or historical fantasy, the kind of writing where druids turn up uninvited and one of your main characters develops an unsettling affinity with wolves before you have quite decided what sort of book you are writing. Shadowland began with every intention of staying grounded in historical reality, the story of Uther Pendragon. It did not. It has turned out to be a popular book, so he does not complain. C.M. Gray is now happily settled just outside Barcelona with his wife and partner in life, Adriana.

Historical Fiction Spotlight: Da Vinci’s Masterstroke, by Lorraine Amrani

2026-07-26T05:47:49.448+00:00

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US

When the guns fell silent in 1945, one man uncovered a secret the world was never meant to see.

Special Officer Max Page-Hamilton – art historian, British officer, and one of the famed Monuments Men – stumbled upon Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring’s looted treasure trove in the final days of the war. Hidden behind the stolen Mona Lisa lay a sealed envelope bearing Göring’s personal wax seal… and inside it, a revelation capable of shaking the foundations of art history. Papers penned by Leonardo da Vinci himself, words so explosive that Max locked them away, swearing never to unleash their consequences on a fragile postwar world.

Decades later, his granddaughter inherits not only his legacy, but the burden of truth he dared not reveal.

Now, as global tensions simmer and the art world stands at a precipice, she steps into the spotlight he avoided. What Leonardo wrote in the 16th century was no ordinary treatise – It was a masterstroke of genius, a confession, and a key. A secret capable of re-drawing the line between myth and history, power and obsession, beauty and deceit.

From the salons of occupied Paris to the shadowy corridors of the contemporary art market, Da Vinci’s Masterstroke weaves together wartime intrigue, artistic passion, and a mystery that transcends centuries. Rich with historical detail, driven by emotion, and brimming with suspense, Lorraine Amrani crafts a thriller for art lovers and truth seekers alike, a story where every masterpiece hides a motive, and every revelation comes at a price.

What if the world’s most celebrated painting was never the real story? Open the envelope. Follow the clues. Discover the secret that could turn the art world upside down.

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About the Author

Lorraine Amrani was born and raised in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and Queens, and was fortunate to have had many opportunities to develop and extend her range of interests, inspired by her historical surroundings. Lorraine spent time working in the Palace of Westminster for a prominent cabinet minister. Following this, Lorraine trained as a nutritionist but her growing passion with art and creativity led to three years studying the History of Art in Greenwich, whilst actively pursuing her career as an artist, first with drawings, but quickly embracing Oil Painting as her preferred medium. Since then, her artwork has been featured in many exhibitions, publications and prominent offices, and in 1995 was honoured to receive a commission to paint the portrait of Wilhelm Roentgen, the inventor of x-ray to celebrate its hundredth-year anniversary. Lorraine continued to broaden her creative passions. She found herself in the London studio of candle-maker to the king, to learn the age-old artisan craft of traditional candle-making, and soon came to understand that producing candles were not for the faint-hearted, due to the unpredictable nature of the molecules when trying to create a distinctive perfume. But finally, a successful brand emerged. More recently, Lorraine has taken advantage of Britain’s world class museums, galleries and exhibitions to indulge her imagination as she examined in forensic detail the lives of the world’s most celebrated artists. It was this, that sparked a creative ambition that persisted until finally sitting down to write her first work of fiction, an art thriller. Da Vinci's Masterstroke was the result. When Lorraine is not working on new creative ventures, she has started to research and collect artefacts from the ancient world. Find out more at https://lorraineamrani.com/ and follow Lorraine on Instagram and X at @Amraniframe