Have you seen our giveaway of The Mischief of the Mistletoe and a lovely Christmas ornament? Have you entered? Check out all the details here. You might also want to enter a giveaway for the same prizes at Historical-Fiction.com while you are at it!
Irish from Ticket to Anywhere has announced that she is hosting a North and South read-a-long (the Elizabeth Gaskell classic). I am seriously tempted to join in, just so that I can put the badge on my blog for 5 weeks in a row!
Jamie Ford has confirmed that Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet has been optioned to be made into a film. There's a lot more steps along the way until we get to see a finished movie, but it is good news for lots of people who liked the book! I would make an effort to go and see it.
Other giveaways
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Riesen at Historical-Fiction.com
Dangerous to Know by Tasha Alexander at Booktrib
If you are a fan of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel and any other stories with lots of adventures, sword playing, glamourous spies, mystery and romance, you will be definitely become a huge fan of The Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig.
In the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, we meet Eloise Kelly, an American grad student who came to the UK to uncover the identity of the Pink Carnation, the mysterious team leader of a spy network who worked during the Napoleonic wars.
Each book present us a new spy (all with beautiful flower names) and we follow their adventures back in the beginning of the 19th century. In the present day, we tag along with Eloise who does her best to continue her research trying not to be troubled by handsome Colin, who does everything to stop her to find out the real identities behind those aliases.
As the series continues we find that not everyone is who they appear to be (especially not the character’s friends, family and enemies!), and that the course of true love doesn’t necessarily run smooth for anyone, and have lots of fun along the way.
The covers are amazingly beautiful and work perfectly as an eye candy. Some of the most recent artwork used in the paperback edition is more in the romance side and quite different from the initial covers, but still very distinctive for the series.
7. The Mischief of the Mistletoe (release date 28/10/10)
8. The Orchid Affair (release date 11/01/11)
Lauren Willig’s new book, The Mischief of the Mistletoe (a perfect read for Christmas!) is being released today. To celebrate this occasion we have two special prizes: a package deal with a copy of The Mischief of the Mistletoe and a Christmas ornament to give away to two lucky winners.
To participate you just have to leave a comment!
contest open to the US only
closes the 11/11/10
A big thanks to Lauren Willig and Liza from the Penguin Group for this lovely giveaway. Good luck to everyone!
Over the last week or so we have been running a contest for one lucky winner to receive a copy of Harriet Riesen's fascinating look at the lives of one of the most beloved authors, Louisa May Alcott. We are pleased to not only announced that the winner of the giveaway is
but also to have a guest post from Harriet Riesen explaining why she loves Louisa May Alcott!
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Like so many other girls, I fell under the spell of Louisa May Alcott when my mother presented Little Women to me as if it were the key to a magic kingdom. I was taken into Louisa’s story so completely that a book with covers and pages has no place in my memory of the experience. While I was there, by my mother’s decree, normal life was suspended. Jelly omelets were delivered to my room on bed trays, and sleep was optional. At such a time, school was out of the question. Jo March was coming to take up residence in my heart, a companion for life, to endow me with a little something of Louisa Alcott’s own wise, funny, sentimental, and sharply realistic outlook.
Coming to the end of Little Women left me feeling as Louisa did when she emerged from a vortex (one of her all-absorbing periods of writing): cranky, bereft, and lamenting that never again would I read Little Women not knowing how it came out. The next long rainy weekend my grandmother, tipped off by my mother, showed up for a visit bearing the remaining seven of Alcott’s juvenile novels. I polished off one of them before the sun came out and Grandma went home; the rest by the end of the month. I had gobbled Alcott all up without coming close to satisfying my appetite for her work.
Soon after I moved to the Boston area in my twenties I took myself to the Alcotts’ modest doorstep in Concord. Orchard House is chockablock with things the Alcotts made and ate from and wore and painted and used so much that I imagine their smell must still cling to them. It was in her small bedroom, from the tiny semicircular writing surface where she wrote Little Women in ten weeks, that Louisa May Alcott emerged to make herself real and claimed me.
Over the next decade I read whatever I could find of Alcott’s scores of short stories, poems, and works of nonfiction such as Hospital Sketches, her account of her experience as an army nurse in the Civil War, and Work, a largely autobiographical novel. Her rediscovered thrillers were coming out every year or two, at the rate of a popular living novelist. Louisa’s journals and letters were published at about the same time as the thrillers. In them I finally heard Louisa Alcott’s voice—not Jo March’s voice, or the authorial voice of Louisa May Alcott, but the voice of the woman who had lived and breathed. Over the next twenty years I continued my study of Alcott’s life, work, and times. By the time I had read just about all of Louisa’s hundreds of works I could sift them for the autobiographical elements I needed to tell her story without leaving her imagination out.
My background was in film and screenwriting. My friend, Director Nancy Porter, and I set out to raise more than a million dollars to tell Louisa’s story. When Susan Lacy of the PBS series American Masters agreed to coproduce and broadcast a ninety-minute documentary biography, my pleasant obsession with Louisa Alcott became a better-than-full-time job. With it came the opportunity to fulfill my long-held dream of telling her story in print.
Through writing and producing the film, I came to know my subject as few biographers do. Nancy and I spent hours in Orchard House planning the filming, becoming as comfortable there as we would be at a friend’s house. In the venerable New York apartment on East Seventy-eighth Street of Madeleine Stern and Dr. Leona Rostenberg, under the suspicious gaze of the last of the household’s dachshunds named Laurie, we filmed the nonagenarian literary sleuths (and rare book dealers) who had discovered Louisa’s pseudonym, A. M. Barnard, and with it the key to her secret literary life as a writer of pulp fiction. I become a literary sleuth myself in search of an Alcott scholar I never met—Madelon Bedell, the author of The Alcotts: Biography of a Family. In 1975 Bedell had interviewed ninety-six-year-old Lulu Nieriker Rasim, Louisa’s niece and the only person then still alive to have known her personally. Bedell’s account of the interview is in the preface to her 1980 book, but the interview itself was never published; the author died of cancer before she completed a second volume. I wondered what had happened to Bedell’s interview with Lulu, had asked various Alcott scholars about it, had even tried calling Bedells listed in telephone books. One day I picked up a used copy of The Alcotts, and out of it tumbled a carbon copy of an August 1980 letter written by Bedell herself to Michael Sterne, then the travel editor of the New York Times, proposing a story. At the bottom of the letter was a return address in Brooklyn where, more than two decades later, Madelon Bedell’s widower, Bob Bedell, still lived. He transferred the papers to me. They took up half my study before I entrusted them to the Orchard House collection.
Now that the film and the book are done—having truly gobbled Louisa May Alcott all up—I confess to feeling just about as cranky and bereft as I did as a girl when I finished reading what I believed was everything she wrote. My hope is that Alcott lovers everywhere will be inspired to track down the Louisa May Alcott works whose titles are known but whose whereabouts are not, to bring them forth from obscure periodicals in the backs of old local library shelves, attic trunks, even from inside the walls of old houses, as pages of Louisa’s childhood diary was, so they may be published and read as widely as their most recent predecessors have been. If they do, I may never have to run out of new work from the prodigious pen of Louisa May Alcott.
Why do I love brave, passionate, funny Louisa May Alcott? Because she has been a magical presence in my life. And because she is so surprising. Watch this video to find out a few things you probably don’t know about her.
To find out more about Harriet Reisen and her book, head over to louisamayalcott.net
Giverny is a small village in Normandy, North of France. To get there from Paris it was quite easy, I took the train to Vernon (about 75 km) and there I had several ways to join the village: by renting a car, taking the bus who stops right next to the train station (but you almost have to fight the crowd during the Spring and Summer season) and finally, my favorite, by bicycle, especially if you have a bunch of friends with you or even your kids. I chose the last one!
Colorful is the right word for Monet's house. Rose and green in the exterior and a different but tasteful palette in the interior of the house. Everything was simple, but surprisingly cozy! I wasn't allowed to take any photos inside, but I do remember one thing: the rooms were small (except for Monet's atelier transformed later into the studio-sitting room) or maybe there was too many people there... Somehow, I believe it's the latter impression the most correct.
While visiting the house, your eyes are often drawn to the gardens and the view was breathtaking. I immediately decided to leave and explore the gardens.
I could spend hours walking trough all those flowers, enjoying the sun and all the colors mixed up together in perfect harmony. My favorite spot was the Water Garden. I was eager to see what inspired Monet to paint The Nympheas.
The Water Lily Pond and a Japanese bridge which inspired several paintings.
In the end, if sometimes you can feel a little bit crowed, visiting Giverny is certainly a must-do for everyone, even those who are not particularly fans of Monet. The gardens alone are a jewel! But one thing is sure, I highly advise you to visit in early Spring (I was there late August) when the gardens are in full bloom and the village is less crowed, or at least it's what I was told.
I hope you enjoyed this small visit as much as I did!
Miss Moppett from The Misadventures of Moppet has announced that the Royal Mistress Challenge will be back in 2011. There have been a couple of changes to the rules, and there's a fabulous new button too, so head on over to see whether this might be a challenge that will interest you in 2011.
Speaking of challenges, Holly from Bippity Boppity Book has announced that she is running the Chivalrous Deeds: A Historical Fiction Reading Challenge for 2011. All the details can be found here.
Some time in December we will put up a post of all the historical fiction challenges that we know about for next year.
In the last edition of HT News I mentioned a giveaway of The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig, along with a Christmas ornament at Peeking Between the Pages. The are a number of these giveaways happening at the moment to celebrate the imminent release of the last Pink Carnation book, and I can see why because the idea of going away a Christmas Ornament is such a fun idea! Other opportunities to win can be found at Historically Obsessed, Passages to the Past, and if you keep your eye out you may well see something similar here later in the week. Just don't tell anyone here that you heard it from me!
Other Giveaways
The Wedding Shroud by Elisabeth Storrs (2 copies) at Fly High!
Isabeau by N Gemini Sassoon at History and Women
We are thrilled to welcome Amy from Passages to the Past to participate in our Books of a Lifetime feature. Remember, if you would like to participate just send us an email and we will work out the details!
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Hi everyone, I am so thrilled and honored to have been asked to participate in the Books of a Lifetime post by the wonderful ladies here. I have been following Historical Tapestry for years, they were one of the blogs that inspired me to start my own and now I’m so happy to be here guest posting about my favorite subject….reading!
Like all of you books have played an important role in my life, most importantly that of a friend. I grew up an only child of a single mother and spent a lot of time on my own while she was working multiple jobs to provide for us and reading helped me feel less lonely. Growing up I was also an emotionally sensitive kid and books gave me a way to escape my own mind for a while. In this post I will highlight some reads that always remind me of a particular time in my life and are among my favorites to this day.
Childhood
Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham: Dr. Seuss was my go-to-guy as a kid. I was drawn to the whimsical-ness (is that even a word?) of the drawings, the fantastic creatures he created and the sing-songy rhythm of the story. Later in life I read about the hidden meaning behind Dr. Seuss’s books which made them that much more special to me. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas will always be my all-time favorite Christmas read.
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women: I would be remiss in not mentioning the book that served as inspiration for my name. My mom’s favorite book is Little Women and you can bet that we always had a copy on hand at our house. Interestingly enough I even resembled the youngest March daughter Amy with my light blond curly hair and blue eyes, but Jo was always my favorite of the girls. She was kind hearted but always got into trouble which sounds a bit like me ! Little Women is one of those books that you can pick up at any age and enjoy all over again!
Teenage
V.C. Andrews, Dollanganger Series: As a teenager my tastes turned to a tad darker and the Dollanganger series from V. C. Andrews was totally different than anything I had ever read before. The Dollanganger series includes the books Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday and Garden of Shadows. Once I had finished the first book I immediately begged my mom to purchase the rest and was very happily ensconced in the Dollanganger family drama for days!
Danielle Steel, Family Album: While I was in high school I picked up my first Danielle Steel book and was instantly hooked!! I then proceeded to pick up as many as I could and read almost all of them over one summer. The one Steel book I still think about is Family Album. I have always been fascinated by family dynamics and drama and this book has it in abundance! My daughter likes to think I named her after the author, and though I didn’t on purpose maybe having a whole bookshelf full of her novels somehow subconsciously entered my brain!
Adult
Dean Koontz, Strangers: I’ve got one word to describe author Dean Koontz…fabulicious! There is not one Koontz book that I’ve read and didn’t like. He is just amazing! After my infatuation with Danielle Steel faded my bookshelves were transformed into the Dean Koontz shrine. The one book that I could re-read a million times is Strangers, which tells the story of six strangers that are inexplicably drawn to a motel in Nevada, where they will eventually recall that they’ve met before and the event they have all forgotten. It’s got mystery, the supernatural and a little science fiction that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the novel. Ha, now that I’m talking about it I really want to break it out and re-read it for the 5th time!
Anne Rice, The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches): When I was approached about writing this post the first book that came to mind was The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. I have read this book more times that I can count and definitely more than any other book before or after. I finally had to pick up a new copy because the old one was falling apart from so much use! The Witching Hour is about a family of witches and the spirit who controls them all. It is a perfect conglomeration of the supernatural, gothic mystery, witchcraft and even love.
Recent
Sharon Kay Penman, The Welsh Trilogy: Penman’s Welsh Trilogy is pure perfection! Historical Fiction just doesn’t get any better than this!! Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning are the books that started my fascination with Wales and I still think about Llewelyn and Joanna even years later. Penman’s exquisite writing, meticulous research and memorable characters are what make her such a fierce author!
Ken Follett, Fall of Giants (Book One, The Century Trilogy): Fall of Giants is my most recent read and boy was it PHE-NOM-E-NAL!! I am a big fan of Follett’s other HF books, Pillars of the Earth and World Without End and I was so excited when I found it on sale at a store the day before it was supposed to be released. It’s a gargantuan book but so super good that I breezed right through it…even though I have carpal tunnel in both wrists I carried that thing with me everywhere! I cannot wait for the next two books in the trilogy but I must practice patience.
Sad news today, with the Guardian Newspaper reporting that children's author Eva Ibbotson has died aged 85. I know that there are books like The Countess Below Stairs that are much loved in the historical fiction world, in addition to the children's books she has written. Her last book, The Ogre of Oglefort, was published earlier this year.
We are very excited to announce that we are hosting a giveaway of Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Riesen.We are also excited to announce that next week, we will have a guest post from the author, and we will announce the winner of this contest on the day of the guest post.
I remember reading the Little Women books when I was a teenager and loving the story of the March family and this is a good chance to find out more about the author behind this beloved series.
The lucky winner of this contest will win a copy of the book directly from the publisher.
Synopsis
In a fresh, modern take on the remarkable Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Reisen’s vivid biography explores the author’s life in the context of her works, many of which are to some extent autobiographical. Although Alcott secretly wrote pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and served as a Civil War nurse, her novels went on to sell more copies than those of Herman Melville and Henry James. Stories and details culled from Alcott’s journals, together with revealing letters to family, friends, and publishers, plus recollections of her famous contemporaries provide the basis for this lively account of the author’s classic rags-to-riches tale. In Louisa May Alcott, the extraordinary woman behind the beloved American classic Little Women is revealed as never before.
Rules:
Giveaway open to US address only
One entry per person.
To enter leave a comment, including your email address so we can contact the winner.
Contest closes 26 October 2010.
Don't forget, if you would like to participate by sharing your favourite books, then please email us and we will work out the details. We would love for this to become a historical fiction blogging community event! And Alex has been working her magic again, and we have some fantastic buttons for you to use on your blog too!
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There’s never been a time in my life when I was not a reader. My parents read to me when I was little until I turned around and started reading to them myself; I’m sure I loved it from day one. The first book I ever read was called Mickey Mouse and the Magic Peanut, and I went on to read it to a variety of younger classes throughout grade school. Reading started out as an escape, and as I began to discover more genres and authors I realized just what a wonderful world awaited me. I’ve never had a time in my life when I wasn’t reading, no matter how slowly or how little time I had.
Childhood
I’ve also loved history throughout my life, even though I didn’t actually realize it until I hit college! A few of my favorite books in childhood were historical. For example, I absolutely adored the Dear America series and loved the Royal Diaries spinoff series even more. I didn’t acquire books nearly so frequently as I do these days, so my childhood favorites were read over and over again.
Anne of Green Gables was another that I read so often that I can still remember the entire plot and even a few sentences, though I now haven’t read it in years. I read hardly any of the following books, something I’ve always regretted and intend to remedy someday. Anne remains one of my favorite literary characters.
My last childhood hurrah was really Princess Nevermore by Dian Curtis Regan; it wasn’t historical, but part of the fantasy world was based on medieval history. The coming of age and falling in love of a young princess spoke eloquently to my twelve year old self. I’ve reread this one and it held up surprisingly well, as did its newer sequel.
Teenager
As a teenager, I first discovered romance novels, as I think many teenage girls do; of course, I stuck to the historical ones and I do to this day. My favorite at the time was Prince Charming by Gaelen Foley; it’s in a made up country, but that just meant Foley could mash together all the good bits and leave out the bad ones. And I loved the idea of an aristocratic girl bandit.
When I was in high school, a few friends introduced me to epic fantasy novels, which weren’t a hard sell with me. I love big sweeping worlds and storylines that feel truly epic. My favorite series is by George R.R. Martin. It’s not finished yet, possibly not even close, but no other series has equaled the adoration I felt towards his first three of the Song of Ice and Fire series. They’re dark, gritty, and based very loosely on the Wars of the Roses. What’s not to love?
My other big favorite fantasy series that I discovered at the time was Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel trilogy. Not only did the series feel beautifully epic, but it featured an absolutely fantastic love story between Phedre and Joscelin, the latter of which is another of my favorite characters ever. I’ve also managed to reread this and loved it equally the second time; Carey has written plenty more since then but not much can stack up to the original for me.
My last big discovery in high school was Stephen King. I was afraid of everything as a child so I never expected to like scary books, but along came a paper in junior year where I decided to read and analyze Carrie and It. It in particular just blew me away. I thought it was unbelievably fantastic; it again had that epic feel and was just creepy enough to keep me up at night.
Adulthood
As an adult, I fell in love with history. Looking back, I see echoes of that everywhere. My favorite fantasy series, mentioned above, are based on medieval Europe, and all of my childhood favorites have historical elements to them. Somehow I never put the pieces together, until I managed to read Sharon Kay Penman at the same time as having a fascinating history class at college. The Sunne in Splendour is a landmark for me; I may not agree with Penman’s interpretation of history any longer, but I can’t deny that it is a powerful, moving, and beautifully written book. She’s absolutely one of my favorite authors.
Combining two of my favorite things is Guy Gavriel Kay, another adulthood discovery, though I seized upon everything he’d written as soon as I could. My favorite is The Lions of al-Rassan, which desperately needs a reread from me; it’s set in a fantastical version of medieval Spain and is both beautifully written and heart-wrenching.
The most recent addition to my absolute favorites list isn’t precisely a historical novel, but still has echoes of it. It’s The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, about a reserved butler who struggles to face his past. It’s a beautiful story of old and new England, of a man who isn’t sure who he is anymore and can’t face who he was. Since I had no idea what to expect, I was just blown away. Ishiguro has become one of my favorite authors for his gorgeous writing and his slow, quiet reveals.
I have many more books I could add to this list, but I’ll leave it here for now or you’ll be here all day!
And now it's time to remember the rules and introduce the new letter!
Each fortnight you have to write a blog post about an historical fiction book of your choice (it might even be something you already read before), but it MUST be related to the letter of the fortnight.
You have several possibilities:
- the first letter of the title
- the first letter of the author's first name or surname
- the first letter of a character's first name or surname
- the first letter of a place where an historical event took place
You just have to choose one of them and participate.
Please check our blog each 1st and 15th of the month to find out our new letter, and then link your post (not your blog) back to our page through Mr Linky (see below). Then come and check to see who else has posted and visit their blog to find out all the details of the book they were reading.
You'll have until October 30th to complete your mission, the next letter will be published on November 1st and it is the letter U:
The Iron King (Le Roi de Fer) is the first book of an historical French series named The Accursed Kings (Les Rois Maudits) written by Maurice Druon. The story is set in the 14th century France during the last years of the reign of the King Philip IV, the Fair also known as The Iron King.
Philip is described as a severe, distant and intelligent man with quite a sense of humor, but his presence alone is enough to intimidate everyone, even when he tries to be nice. While often seen as a cruel and cold man by all those around him, his loneliness is blatant in each scene. He is a king who felt more at ease surrounded by his dogs and hunting than in court or with his family. Known in history as the man who destroyed the Knights Templar, the persecution of seven years culminated with the execution of the Great Master, Jacques de Molay.
We also follow other stories, like the Tour of Nesle Affair, a scandal amidst the Royal French family where Margaret and Blanche of Burgundy, daughters-in-law of the King, were found guilty of adultery with the two Aulnay brothers. The third daughter-in-law, Joan of Burgundy, was also punished for hiding the lovers and passing down messages. If there was also suspicions of infidelity, the support of her husband saved her from the same fate as her sister and cousin.
The author doesn’t hesitate to fill out the history blanks with some drama, which can sometimes be a little excessive but nothing that spoils the story, at least not for me. The scene that remains vividly in my memory is the execution of Jacques de Molay and how he cursed all those who participated in his condamnation. While I was reading it, I was holding my breath completely under the spell of Druon’s words.
Maurice Druon is known for his extensive historical research and he easily manages to create a perfect balance between history, humor and even romance. He brings back history to life with strong characters, captivating dialogues and a fascinating 14th century France filled with powerful moments: the demise of the Capetian dynasty, the disappearance of one of the most important religious orders, the Knights Templar, or even the upcoming Hundred Years War.
Years ago when I was studying history, this book was a must read for any history buff in France. The series was even adapted to the small screen twice, first in the 70′s (which I really recommend to any period drama lover) and the latest one in 2005. After all those years, the book remains, for me, one of the best French historical fiction pieces. I intend to buy and read the rest of the series as quick as possible (something I planned to do for years and never had the chance!).
The Accursed Kings series:
1. The Iron King
2. The Strangled Queen
3. The Poisons of the Crown
4. The Royal Succession
5. The She-Wolf of France
6. The Lily and the Lion
7. When a King Loses France
